INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD GRAHAM


Richard Graham, the new chief executive of the  Professional Squash   Association (PSA), has fearlessly set out his stall: he has told the   PSA board that if he has not created two new tournaments by the end   of this year, he feels he will have failed. This is brave stuff, but  
this 49-year old veteran of the sports/marketing/tournament business   has had the sort of experience that could help him deliver on his  promises.

The future looks promising for both Graham and the PSA. Cynically it   could be said that Graham would be hard put to do worse than the   ‘problematic’ reign of Gawain Briars, who never seemed to do anything  right.

Back in 1999 when Briars was appointed I was going to Cardiff to   watch the final of the Rugby World Cup. I was told by the PSA office – which was 100 yards from my hotel, that Briars would be too busy to  see me.    Richard Graham started his job on June 2nd.  The next day  he spent an hour on the phone anwering my questions –even the hard  ones.   Briars spent most of term in office, fighting the press:  

Graham promises that sports media coverage will be one of this three main goals.

We must congratulate the PSA board on doing their homework on this  appointment.  Martin Macdonnell, a PSA board member, was joined on  the selection board  by Ziad al-Turkey, the man behind the Saudi  tournament and Superseries finals, and Peter Nicol.

Graham was born in West Africa, Ghana, his father was a soldier, and  spent his early years traveling around the world before going to  school in England at the age of13.

He started his working life at England’s Lawn Tennis Association as  finance manager and then in 1987 moved to Florida to work on the  Lipton Tennis tournament. His first big deal was to persuade Thomas J  Lipton company to put up $31 million on a 20 year sponsorship  contract  at that time, the biggest in tennis.

He returned to the UK to work on a Wworld Ice hockey championship in  Cardiff.  Then spent three years with promoting Equestrian events,  acquiring Toyota as a sponsore and getting coverage on ITV.  This was  followed  by ten years in South America working in the youth market  
and then, in 2006, he returned to England to work as the Chief  Operating Officer for Parallel Media Group which specialized in golf  tournaments  in Asia. Graham ran the London and Hong Kong offices.

So the PSA now has a man who has been around the world, has worked in  various sports and knows what it takes to get sponsorship and what  marketing means.  He is bright, answered the questions quickly and  didn’t duck the difficult ones.


Q: AM I BEING UNFAIR IN SAYING THE BRITISH DON’T KNOW HOW TO MARKET SPORT?
A: If you look at the success the English Premier football league, that  has held up pretty well. But you do have a point: one of the things I  remember from my time in the US is that they always approached every  scenario with a  fresh pair of eyes with a view to being innovative.  
We [Britain] are a great respecter of tradition and this can  lead a  to a blinkered view of being radical and challenging.

Q: THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF REGARDING YOUR APPOINTMENT:  THAT YOU ARE SO  NEW YOU WILL HAVE TO LEARN MUCH THAT WE IN THE SPORT TAKE FOR  GRANTED, AND TWO, THAT YOU WILL COME IN WITH A FRESH PAIR OF EYES AND  SEE WHERE THE SPORT IS GOING WRONG.

A: Well I think coming in from the outside I can have a fairly objective  view on what might make a  presentable package for new markets, or  for new media audiences. As for background knowledge, the PSA have  been quite prudent and we are taking on a new Chief Operating  Officer  as well. [Alex Gough was appointed on June 5]. So I will  have as my right hand man somebody from within the sport. Yes,  there’s an awful lot of detail that I have to get up to speed on and  an awful lot of personalities to get to know across the whole range  of stakeholders in the  sport so  it will be a huge help to me to  have somebody next to me who can steer me right on so many things.

It is now accepted that talents can be transferable. I come from  within sport, worked in agencies and also within federations. I think  it iswhat I picked up from the agencies, the commercial implications  of managing a sport, that probably gave me the nod through the  interview process.

Q: WHAT ARE THE PRIORITES FOR THE PSA?
A: I told the PSA board I saw three main strands of attack: First to  have a credible tour. We have the foundations, there’s still  deficiencies  - the dates of future events are very fluid; it’s hard  
to see consistency in terms of prize money.  At the elite level –  Super Series and five star events – I would like to see  a  strengthening of the calendar there. I have made a commitment to  
bring in new events quite soon. I’ve told the Board that by the end  of this year I would like to be the position to announce a couple of  news events. But we should try to keep the grouping of events in a  logical geographical fashion: North America in the first three or  four months of the year,  Europe the next three or four months and  then the Middle East  for the final part of the year.  This allows  for forward planning and makes sense for the players. If we can  persuade the promoters to keep to within a two week slot,  theoretically we can  stick  26 events in a year.

Number two: I am very aware of the fact squash has not been getting a  fair crack in the media. It has to be really thought through how the  sport is packaged. On the media front I have two lines of attack. I  would like to work with the established media  such as the  international television channels to get squash a higher profile and  more viewing hours, but also concentrate on the new media that is  coming on stream. There are a lot of new players are now evolving in  the media world who are looking for content and we have a very well  established sport with a lot of content.

We must give a lot of thought to the way squash is packaged and  presented to the viewing audience.  We already know we have the die- hard squash fan who will watch at any time. We are trying to get new  people involved in the sport in general. And to do that I am quite  happy to work alongside WISPA and WSF-  we have a common goal.

My third aim  is to bolster the PSA’s central resources. At the  moment  we have a limited number of sponsors at the highest level. We  don’t have a tour sponsor. We have a lot of flexibility in creating  our own events. So  that will be my third objective: to bring in a  number of high level partners for the sport.

Over-riding all of those is the raison d’etre for the PSA: I have to   create an environment  where this sport can sustain a decent living  for a number of professionals in the world. It does for some, but we  have 450 members  and my aim is to make it possible for as many as  those as possible. And using the professional cricketers association  as  a model,  I would like to create a benevolent  fund  for players  who forced out of the game early. For people who have committed most  
of their adolescent years and most of their 20’s  to get to the top  of the sport and then have it snatched away through an unlucky injury  and struggle at the bottom of the rankings. You must give some  thought to the  obligations to those people. I would like the PSA to  take a leading role in the player’s welfare.

Q: YOU HAVE TWO MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES – THE PLAYERS AND ALSO THE  PROMOTERS. FOR EXAMPLE THERE WAS SOME CONTROVERSY WHEN THE PSA RULED  THAT TOP TEN PLAYERS MUST PLAY AT LEAST SIX SILVER TOURNAMENTS.  THE  PLAYERS OBJECTED BECAUSE THEY FELT THIS DISCOURAGED PROMOTERS FROM  MOVING UP TO GOLD LEVEL WITH MORE PRIZE MONEY. WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON  
THAT?

A: The short answer is market forces should dictate where the top  players play.  I don’t want to see the situation in squash that there  is in golf: If you want Tiger Woods to play your tournament, you pay   him over and above the prize money to have him there. It’s got to the  stage where promoters have to have a million Euros for appearance  money.  Promoters have to be realistic – there is only a certain  level to which a governing body or trade union can guarantee its  members participation at a certain level. But at some point you have  to appeal to a player’s responsibility in having a proprietoral  interest in their own tour. That is a tricky one to answer.

Q: ON THE NEW OUTLETS: THE PSA WENT HEAVILY INTO WEB-STREAMING. I AM NOT  CONVINCED OF ITS BENEFITS.
A: I have just arranged to meet the web-streaming people. I have  examined the accounts and it does make a small profit, but I really  have to get a better understanding of how it works. It is at a very  
modest level at the moment and we have to question whether that is  the definite route we have to follow.

Q: YOU HAVE PROBABLY ALREADY BEEN SUBJECTED TO THE TIMELESS THEORIES  THAT THE ONLY WAY SQUASH WILL GO FORWARD IS THROUGH LIVE TELEVISION  AND GETTING INTO THE OLYMPICS.

A: There is truth in both. If you want to take squash to new territories  like China and get the people interested in it, they must be exposed  to it. And I see no other way than seeing moving images; you have to  be on television to be noticed. And as for the Olympics, it is a very  important step  for the sport.  But I don’t think it is the be-all  and end-all; I think a lot of sports have survived outside the  Olympics but it certainly it would be a major boost to be in the 2016  Olympics.

Q: IN THE PAST THE SPECTATORS FOR MAJOR TOURNAMENTS HAVE LARGELY BEEN  PEOPLE WHO PLAY SQUASH. WITH DECLINING NUMBERS OF PLAYER AND COURTS,  WHAT IS THE ANSWER?
A: I was at the ATCO Super Series with my wife and Zia  Al-Turki was  there with his wife and Sheila from the PSA was there. I looked  around the audience and they were probably  the only three women.  Everybody else  was a very knowledge fan-base of men who loved the  game. If you market to people who already love the sport, you are on  a road to nowhere.  My priority is to bring in new audiences.  Obviously the way the sport is packaged is important, but I think the  players are a very big marketable factor. I am a red-blooded  heterosexual male but even I could recognize that the two French  players who were on the court were good looking boys. And I was  surprised that there was not more of a female following for men’s  squash the way it has occurred in other sports. For example Roger  Federer has a big female following and so has Nadal. Now I don’t want  to go down the route of players wearing thongs on court, but I think  these players are very marketable.

Q: WITH THE PSA, WISPA, AND WSF ALL BASED IN THE UK, THE REST OF THE  WORLD FEELS THAT THEY TEND TO GET NEGLECTED.
A: I appreciate the need to get around the world and that’s what I  intend to do. I worked for a company that had companies in 104  different countries and I was constantly on the road. Yes, there is a  danger that if you are based in one country and speak one language  you can become very insular and Eurocentric in your viewpoint. But  squash has its powerbase outside of Europe, so it is very much in my  plans to go out and meet the people in the States and the Middle East  
as well as continental Europe and assimilate what they have got to  tell me. I have an international background: I was born in AfricaI’ve got an English dad, a German mother, a Columbian wife and a  
Mexican daughter. I’ve worked in or visited about 50 countries in my  life, so while I am happy to be based in England I certainly hope to  bring an international viewpoint to the job. The budget will be there  to allow me to get around the world and do my job.

I wouldn’t have taken on this job if I didn’t think squash had a lot  of potential. I’ve been in the business for a while and so my address  book is quite good. I’ve already been in touch with potential  sponsors. There is a good basis to build on. I have said that I hope  to announce new tour partners  and new media deals by the end of the  year and if I don’t do that I will consider myself a failure.
           

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