The flagship event in all other sports are a promotional tool, why not squash ?

 

Clearly they are not the ONLY tool but they should be an important one.

 

From what I can see, read and heard from people is that the exposure and promotion of events like this is so poor that it renders them totally irrelevant. Speaking to a number of people including squash nuts, who have an absolute passion for the game, not one even knew it was on, knew who was playing or cared a hoot, now for our sports national competition, no matter how you look at it that is a shocking state of affairs, do you think the same would be allowed to happen in most other sports.

 

 

 

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Viper, sorry I have not picked up on this post earlier.
Your comment about the Australian Open being a failure is arguable depending from which point of view you are coming from, and what the organisers are trying to achieve by it. It would not have been the first time, even in the glory days, that it did not receive wide coverage.

I think that if we are expecting the Australian Open to be a recruiting mechanism we are fooling ourselves; it never was, and probably never will be. Again, this comes back to who controls where the money is spent.  A lot of it is controlled by the Government and they determine how the money will be spent - this applies to all sports, not just squash.

The failure to promote squash in schools I lay firmly at the feet of local centre operators who have a financial interest in developing squash in their local community.  Whilst there is assistance from Squash Australia it is the CO's business and it is their job to do so.

The job of the AIS, as I see it,  is to take talented and committed young players and turn them into top professionals.  To this end I think the AIS has been reasonably successful, eg Kasey is an example.

It comes back to our previous discussions on this topic which we won't go over again.

PS - There are still some in the squash fraternity, especially at the state level,  who believe the high level events are a promotional tool.  This is an easy option because going out getting operators to promote the game in a different market, eg schools etc, is hard work and very time consuming.

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But is the downward spiral to be arrested Ray ?

The evidence of the steady decline over the last 20 years and the very recent failure of this Australian Open just passed suggests otherwise, I could not believe the appathy around our club.

If the sucess of our world beaters on the world stage is having no effect on our local players and now our national championship is also of no interest to dedicated club players then how do we justify the investment of precious $ resources into the elite of the AIS - AT THE EXPENSE OF GROWING THE GRASS ROOTS OF SQUASH ESPECIALLY IN SCHOOLS ?

Clearly the notion that producing world champions through places like the AIS will spark kids to pick up a squash racket is proven beyond doubt to be ABSOLUTE CRAP !

NEWS FLASH JUST IN !!!!------>

----------- "FROM TODAY SQUASH HAS TO REFOCUS ON KIDS" ----------------

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unfortunately what you say has been true for some time. i think it is the nature of squash players, in Australia at least, to have little interest in what is happening at the top level. it has probably been true since the days of Hunt/Mackay.

This is, I believe, the paradox of Squash - its greatest strength and weakness all rolled into one.  Squash is one of very few sports where any player at any level can play flat out at 100%. Every player can play their own Australian/World Championship every time they play regardless of their own standard.

But don't get too depessed viper. like I said, it i also a great strength that players  do not necessarily need that top level exposure to enjoy the game themselves.

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