If you're an avid follower of squash on the web, you can't have missed the scoring debate, that's spread across the squash websites like Water Hyacinth these past few weeks.

SquashTalk's largely stayed out of this particulary fray (or frenzy or what you might choose to call it) but with the WSF vote this week on the topic, I will weigh in here with a few thoughts and views.

EXPLANATION
By way of explanation, most of the squash world, in clubs and leagues around the world (and also in the world's largest "league", the College Squash Association) plays with the so-called "hand-out to nine" scoring system, which simply means one plays to nine and must be serving to score.

The PSA has driven several changes in the scoring system over the past decade, first moving to a fifteen point "point a rally" (PAR) system, and most recently to an eleven point PAR system. The women's pro association, WISPA, has just switched to the eleven point PAR system this summer, providing the galvanizing event that has led to a vote by the World Squash Federation at their meetings this week.

WHY PAR?
the move to "PAR" scoring was an effort by the PSA to "follow the money", namely to shorten up and jazz up the pro game to make it more attractive as a potential TV sport and in-person spectator sport.

This was driven by too many pro events falling victim to unpredictab le schedules, the quintessential example being one infamous night of the Tournament of Champions in New York, with the defensive-minded Peter Marshall and Paul Johnson battling it out at close to one in the morning, with virtually all of the audience having left except for a few stalwart press (namely Martin Bronstein and Ron Beck) and the tournament officials on hand, for rally after long rally.

So the PSA made their moves, going to the 11 pont PAR scoring. While proponents argue that games are now more exciting and more offensive, there are also some significant downsides to this fairly dramatic shift in the scoring of the game. Those downsides are;

There has, in a substantial number of cases, been a big swing in the other direction -- while some pro matches still last for sixty to eighty minutes, there are too many early round matches, now, that last for only about 30 minutes. Once a player falls behind, he/she must have very strong inner mental strength to convince oneself to fight on. Too many times this is not happening, a fundamental shift in the core value of the game.

While comebacks from 0-2 games down were always a ready possibility for the spectators to look forward to with hand-out scoring, or even PAR to 15, it has become a rarity with PAR to 11. While we don't have much history yet with WISPA PAR to 11 yet, I would venture that this will be an even rarer occurrance on the WISPA side.

At the amateur level, which presents a whole different reality, the PAR to 11 scoring is just too short and too predictable. League matches and friendly matches will become shorter, affording less exercise.

WHY NOW?
There's really only one reason this proposal is being pushed through at this time - the Olympic Holy Grail. The world squash community has convinced itself that a unified scoring system is required to make that final push into the Olympic community.

I can't say, not being party to the behind-the-seasons politics and discussions. My understanding of the strengths and weakensses of squash's bid for Olympic inclusion, is that squash has everything on it's side (worldwide participation, strong women's participation, ease (cost) of inclusion ... ) except for media coverage and television.

In case anyone didn't notice, PSA's change to the PAR-to-eleven socring system has not resulted in worldwide TV coverage of squash. The World Open, this week, is not available on TV in the US, to the best of my knowledge. And is not being covered in any newspapers in the US.

that is the challenge that needs focusing on --- changing the scoring system is a sideshow.

OUR THOUGHTS
I've always thought that the hand out to nine scoring system was perfectly balanced and very satisfying to the amateur player at all skill levels. The PAR system is a complete unknown as far as the amateur player is concerned. But since the growing participation level in squash, especially in markets such as the US, is a clear trend, why destabilize it? It took US squash almost a decade to recover from the destabilization of the ball change - that also happened in order to follow the Olympic quest.

Here's a suggestion, WSF, how about what we call in the marketing world a focus group? To our knowledge noone has taken the time to test the pro scoring system with amateurs and with club level competition. Nor, in fact, is there enough body of knowledge to know whether the new scoring system will stand up to the test of time. Or whether instead it will inexorably change the character of the game.

How about, therefore, deferring any such vote, instead recruiting a local squash district somewhere to test the system over one or two seasons and conduct a valid, scientifically backable, focus group type study on the reactions of amateur players to the system, and make the whole exercise transparent?

Then again, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. At the club level, players will use the scoring system they choose to.

After the scoring vote, though, we hope the WSF focuses their attention on the real Olympic inclusions issues --- putting in place an effective world adminstrative leadership and addressing the media challenge.

 

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