Last Saturday afternoon, I was watching an obscure tennis match on television, and I began to wonder why sports fans probably know the name Pete Sampras (#1 tennis), but not Peter Gade (badminton #1). When a Mountain Dew add came on, I tried to figure out why those same fans have probably watched snowboarding on television yet may not even know that Sepak Takraw is the name of a pretty cool sport (volleyball played with the feet – honest) that started a couple of years before snowboarding.
I sat up and began to wonder what sports are most similar to the path that squash would like to follow, and I immediately thought about two sports that somehow made a transition from rarefied interest to mainstream consciousness: tennis and golf.
Tennis has roots back to 18th century France. It was largely seen for years the same way that squash is still viewed by many: a sport played by the elite. But somehow, in the 70’s, tennis exploded. Most tennis experts trace the explosion of the sport to a television broadcast in the late 60’s. It was a Sunday evening telecast of a match between Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver that happened to go to the wire. The effort of the two Australians captured the fancy of America, and suddenly a lot of people wanted to try this new sport.
At that point, a number of things happened concurrently: 1) the USTA seized upon the national interest and started a campaign to encourage the building of tennis courts in parks, playgrounds, and schools, 2) Billie Jean King accepted Bobby Riggs’ challenge to a battle of the sexes, and 3) Ilie Nastase and Jimmy Connors started to get more press for their unbecoming antics. And once McEnroe came on the scene, tennis was big-time. Really big-time.
Golf, of course, has an even longer tradition than tennis, and recently has risen to even greater heights. Perhaps now, it seems inevitable that it would be as big as it is, but it wasn’t that long ago that knowledgeable people felt that golf was prevented from ever being a sport for the masses due to the incredible expense of building courses and the corresponding expense of playing. And while Bobby Jones was somewhat of an international phenomenon in the 1930’s (he had a ticker-tape parade down Broadway when he won the Grand Slam), it wasn’t until Arnold Palmer came on the scene that the sport really began to take off.
Something about Arnold appealed to the masses. He was an everyman who beat the pretty boys at their game. And guess what? The USGA recognized the swing in momentum by encouraging the building of new courses wherever possible, the PGA realized the potential of corporate golf outings and of tying PGA events to corporate hobnobbing, and the sport began to grow. And once Tiger Woods came on the scene, golf was big-time. Really, really big-time.
Each of these sports had one of those “moments in time” that CBS always talks about when March Madness rolls around – and then it seized on its moment with a combination of three things: promoting the heck out of the sport and its connections, planning the construction and implementation of new courts and courses, and lucking out with either a brash, controversial personality or a uniquely identifiable personality near the top of the game.
I get nervous for squash when I can’t help wondering if squash didn’t miss its moment in time. Squash recently went through a once-in-a-lifetime conversion from hardball to softball. When this happened, the sport was opened up far beyond the ivy-clad walls it had been hiding behind. Stunningly, we also had (at least in the US) Mark Talbott, a champion whose personality was so unique that Sports Illustrated ran a six-page spread on him. Those are two things that are almost impossible to control.
Somehow, though, we missed the fact that there was a strong move to convert racquetball courts to squash courts, that magazines like Discover, GQ, and Esquire were all trying to get behind squash with full spreads on the game, and that there was strong corporate interest. And now, that time is gone.
I’m not totally pessimistic, however, for Peter Nicol and Jon Power may be able to provide the combination of charisma and controversy that makes a sport interesting to outsiders. But the potential moments don’t come around that frequently, and the PSA, WSF and USSRA need to recognize the opportunity they have right now and act accordingly.
