Squash Has Its Olympic Moment. Can Clubs Turn It Into Lasting Growth?

Squash has an Olympic opportunity approaching, but the business case will be decided closer to home: can clubs give curious newcomers an affordable first session, a coach who makes it enjoyable and a reason to come back?

That is the question raised by Boston Squash Research’s new industry report, published by The Squash Shop on 24 October. It brings together equipment forecasts, participation data and scenarios for growth.

Read the market figures carefully

The report’s $1.37 billion equipment-market headline is an average of two very different 2025 estimates: $752.9 million from IMARC and $1.98 billion from Fortune Business Insights. Other estimates cited are substantially lower. This is a market with uncertain boundaries, and averaging forecasts does not resolve their differences.

Equipment revenue also excludes much of the spending on clubs, coaching and competition. The report identifies a shortage of comparable public data on those activities and facility economics. Published by a squash equipment retailer, it is a useful synthesis of available evidence, rather than an audited valuation of the sport.

Coaches give the growth story substance

The underlying US Squash June 2025 annual-meeting presentation offers more tangible evidence of development. It reports three-year increases of 30% in rostered scholastic players and 24% in scholastic teams. Separately, it reports a 242% increase in US Squash-certified coaches over three years. The coaching figure is presented under professional development, rather than as a scholastic-only measure.

Those figures describe different groups and cannot establish that additional coaches caused participation growth. They do, however, show why workforce development deserves attention alongside player numbers.

The presentation makes its priorities explicit: “grassroots development needs to get 90% of our focus”. Its final reflections also call for organizers, both paid and voluntary, and greater engagement of women and girls.

What Racket Business thinks...

Squash’s Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028 gives clubs a date around which to prepare. Operators should work backwards from that moment and ask what a first-time visitor will actually encounter.

Can someone borrow a racket? Is there an introductory group at a convenient time? Will a coach explain the right ball to use, arrange suitable opponents and follow up after the first visit? These are modest operational decisions, but together they determine whether an enquiry becomes a regular booking.

Tennis provides a familiar model for the role coaches can play: welcoming beginners, organizing juniors and building social connections around improvement. Squash, padel and pickleball operators should treat that work as part of the club’s commercial offer and allocate staff time accordingly.

We would also measure the results locally. Track how many introductory participants return, enter a regular group and remain active after three months. Compare the cost of delivering those programmes with the income and repeat bookings they generate.

The report is valuable for prompting a wider conversation about squash’s economics. For an individual club, the most useful next step is to turn that conversation into a practical recruitment and retention plan before the Olympic spotlight arrives.