Recently Squash’s commercial arm – PSA’s commercial arm, Squash Media & Marketing (SMM), has sold a percentage of the company to Sports, Media and Entertainment Group (SM&E) – a move that is going to help modernise the sport and take it to the next level.
Walter Family at Windy City Open (credit: Professional Squash Association)
You may be thinking how so? Well, like any investor see’s the potential of the company they have acquired a share in and most importantly has a vision of what direction the sport can compete.
Putting into the context of Squash, it’s a major boost to the sport – especially with the new developments that have taken place in recent years.
Furthermore, events such as World Squash Day and last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham certainly have a good impact on the sport in terms of encouraging people to take up the sport too.
Is it a game-changer? Yes, but let’s elaborate further on what the investment could mean for Squash in the next few years.
The people behind SM&E
Mark Walter
If you are a fan of football, then you will know Mark Walter, as he is one of the investors of Chelsea Football Club, who changed owners last year. He runs the financial services firm Guggenheim Partners and is worth an estimated $5.2 billion, according to Forbes.
His other sports interests include Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and the NBA’s women’s team, the Los Angeles Sparks.
Speaking in an article about his investment published in Broadcast Now, Mark Walter heaped praise on Squash:
“I think professional squash is a global, highly diverse, and exciting sport with a tremendous growth opportunity. We are excited to invest in the future of the sport and look forward to working with the PSA to make this a broader and more inclusive sport and to bring it to more fans.”
Both Mark and his wife Kimbra have sponsored the Windy City Open and the PSA World Championship. The latter (2023 Women’s Championship winner Nour El Sherbini, pictured below) was the first event to offer $1 million in prize money four years ago, with male and female players paid equally.
Needless to say, Mr Walter has already made an excellent contribution to Squash in bringing about change when it comes to equal prize money distribution amongst male and female players.
More power for Olympic inclusion
When it comes to Squash being included in the Olympics, there’s been a lot more discussions on the subject…. could it happen now thanks to the new investment?
Well, this is one of the topics mentioned in an article by SquashMad – how the investment is going help champion the cause of getting the sport into the Olympics Games.
Our opinion is that it will as Squash is a global sport and with a US partner it can seriously drive more awareness of the sport, plus with the 2024 Olympic Games taking place in Los Angeles, there is no doubt that fans of US Squash would love to see their Squash talent compete against the world’s best Squash players on home turf.
Welcome boost grassroots
For the sustainability of the sport, developing the next generation is important – so with Squash it is equally as important as some nations are expanding their grassroots programs to find the next talents of the sport.
With the investment, we hope to see plans for helping young Squash players from different continents have the opportunities to play and gain some form of backing to move on to the senior ranks of the sport.
One such concept that would help with the grassroots is a network of global Squash academies tied up with education.
More access to Squash
Credit Lee Witham
The one thing that is crucial for Squash modernisation is improving access to provision; this means developing outdoor Squash courts.
Here’s a suggestion, the PSA should capitalise on the research from a study on outdoor Squash by the PSA Foundation.
Hopefully, in doing this, can encourage more people to get into the sport, especially during the spring and summer months.
Global expansion of satellite tournaments
If there’s one thing that boosts Squash’s Olympic Games inclusion is more satellite tournaments in countries with a vested interest in Squash.
Take, for instance, Liberty Media Corporation which purchased Formula One in 2016; now as US based corporation, they have worked diligently to get races in the US.
Putting that into the context of Squash, there is a strong demand for tournaments in the Caribbean, Pakistan, and African nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo – all of which have the resources for a tournament as a means to encourage their talents to compete the world’s best.
Surprisingly, Jamaica did host an exhibition march back in the early 2000s and since then Jamaica has produced talented players who would love to play a PSA-sanctioned match on their home turf.
With Pakistan, it would be good to see host a tournament as an honour to Jaghir Khan, Squash’s greatest player.
Final Thoughts
As a promoter, all our stakeholders are happy to see the sport getting a major investment, as it is long overdue and will put the sport ahead of other racquet sports, notably tennis, and could be more popular than Padel too.
We reckon it’s going put the sport back on the map and help with increasing the visibility in all forms of media – especially television and hopefully another dedicated streaming service.
Looking at how Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have done with Wrexham FC, you can expect to see the same for Squash – fingers cross there could be a Netflix special on Squash focusing on certain Squash player progress in a season.
To sum up, it is good to see Squash getting new investment as it is added boost to the sport and will help revitalise the sport in order to become more popular than its racquet cousins, notably Padel, and Tennis; both of which have shared the limelight of racquet sports for years.
Squash’s future looks bright and become (once again) the sport of choice for people of all cultures.
