Message from the CEO: What Today’s Investment Means for Professional Squash

Earlier today, the Professional Squash Association (PSA) announced that the Sports, Media and Entertainment Group led by businessman and philanthropist Mark Walter has acquired a stake in Squash Media & Marketing (SMM), the commercial arm of the PSA, as part of a major investment in the sport.

Below, PSA Chief Executive Alex Gough provides more info on what the investment means for the professional game.

Today’s announcement is a game-changer for professional squash.

We’ve had some big moments over the last 15 years, starting from when our Chairman, Ziad Al-Turki, came along, and he really started to drive the prize money up. In 2010 we developed SQUASHTV from the ground up, and then in 2015, we merged the men’s and women’s tours, which was a big deal for us and the sport.

But this announcement and this investment are about as exciting as it gets for professional squash. 

We’ve been working on this deal for quite some time now. In the background, we’ve put together a strategy where the athletes are at the centre of everything we do. We want to give them more earning opportunities and increase their prize money, and with that, we really need to focus on the events.

A big focus of ours over the coming years is making those events better, growing those events and getting them into some new territories. We want to showcase the sport at a much higher level.

In terms of events and prize money, we’re forecasting a record level for the 2022-23 season, we’re up 9 per cent on last year and we’re at just under $9,000,000 for total prize money. Our ambition in five years’ time, for the 2027-28 season, is to double the prize money to $18,000,000.

We also want to double the number of tournaments. We want to go from 200 events on the World Tour and Challenger Tour to around 400. In terms of Satellite events, we want to drive that to 1,000 events across the world.

Part of the investment will be used to invest in those tournaments. At the moment, Squash Media & Marketing runs five events and we have been able to showcase the sport at some incredible venues, such as The Rep in Birmingham and Union Station in Chicago. It enables us to take some more risks so we can make these events look great and make them more entertaining, and then we can grow them from there.

We won’t be putting this investment straight into prize money. What we’re aiming to do is increase the marketing of the sport and bring in more sponsors through the association with Mark and his company. Mark is an absolute powerhouse within the sports industry, he’s the Chairman of the LA Dodgers, he is co-owner of the LA Lakers and LA Sparks as well as Chelsea Football Club.

We hope we can really utilise his team’s skills to develop the sport, bring in more prize money and more sponsorship.

Mark came along to the Windy City Open in 2014 and became a huge fan of the sport and is a huge fan of what our athletes do. He started sponsoring the Windy City Open through Guggenheim Partners in 2015 and he hasn’t looked back. In 2019 he committed to a 10-year deal which included sponsoring five World Championships at $1,000,000 and, in alternate years, five Windy City Opens at $500,000, so his support has been incredible.

The future is very exciting. Since 2008, when I became involved with the association, all of our growth has been organic. This really feels like a shot in the arm where we can really make things move a lot quicker.

From a squash point of view, our male and female players are just incredible. We’ve got to build around that and package it up in a way where we can market the sport and get the sport out there to a much larger audience than ever before.

It feels like the start of another journey, and we strongly believe that this investment will enable us to take the professional game to unprecedented heights. 

Our immediate focus now turns to the culmination of the 2022-23 season, with the El Gouna International and the CIB PSA World Tour Finals providing an exciting end to a spectacular campaign. From there, we’ll be releasing details of our long-term strategy to the squash community during the summer months.

I’m sure you’ll all agree that it’s a very exciting time to be involved in professional squash and we’re looking forward to sharing the journey with our fans around the globe.

Best wishes,

Alex Gough
PSA Chief Executive Officer