Squash has struggled to reach a wider audience for some time but its governing association, the PSA, is making bold moves to show off the sport and attract more viewers. The media’s focus tends to be immovable, with the same events given the same coverage year after year, so the people in charge of squash are investigating new formats, rules and approaches to increase the sport’s appeal.

In recent years the men’s and women’s association have merged into one body and top-tier events such as the US Open, Tournament of Champions and British Open have started to pay equal prize money. Video reviews have been introduced and we’ve enjoyed a successful overhaul in refereeing, which has helped to rid the game of stalemates. Trials are in place to reduce warm-up times and bring in shorter formats, which are making matches snappier, more explosive and more intense for audiences and players. We even experimented with flashing disco lights between rallies at a recent event, which may or may not have been going too far, depending on your predilection.

While pursuing these tweaks, it’s important we remember squash is in decent shape and doesn’t need an extreme overhaul. It is played on 50,000 courts in 185 countries and the professional game attracts healthy audiences in iconic venues across the world. It looks good on TV now but we need the public to realise that. People still reminisce clumsily about their version of squash from a bygone era. I hear people say “it just doesn’t look good on telly” but then they admit their last sighting of a televised squash court was on a segment from Grandstand in 1987. We’ve moved on since then.

James Willstrop in action against Adnan Nafiizwan at the Commonwealth Games. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

The latest welcome move by the PSA has been to invest in research that illustrates exactly how exacting squash really is. Data scientists have studied the action and uncovered, among other things, players’ heart rates, how many times they hit the ball, the distance they cover on the court and how long they are actually playing rather than just faffing around with towels, drinks and pre-shot rituals.

Data from Tarek Momen’s first-round match against Mathieu Castagnet at the Swedish Open earlier this year offers some insight – and an intriguing comparison with tennis. Momen won the 97-minute match but not before he had covered 5km on the court, struck the ball almost 1,000 times, contested 100 points and covered an average of 48 metres per point. Most of his movement consisted of three-six meter sprints, almost half of which were backwards. Momen spent over 60% of the match – more than an hour – in play.

Those numbers look even more impressive when compared with the longest match at Wimbledon last summer, Rafa Nadal’s epic five-set defeat to Gilles Müller. That match lasted 288 minutes, but Nadal only covered 3.645km, was only in play 15% of the match and only ran 9.4 metres per point. Put simply, Momen ran further in less time with less rest, while covering more distance per point. The data is not intended to decry either sport but to show the fascinating contrast in their physical demands.

The 5km figure almost disappointed me because it feels much harder than that on the court. A 5km run doesn’t sound too taxing but, between all of those three-metre sprints, there is a deep lunge and a push back, a swing of the racket and some body rotation, so that distance only tells part of the story. And it’s worth remembering that Momen was back on the court 24 hours later to do it all again.

Data from Tarek Momen’s match against Mathieu Castagnet shows just how demanding squash can be. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

The challenge for squash’s administrators is now to use this data to captivate the public. People will not necessarily want to watch squash just because it is an incredibly intense sport in which players’ heart rates float around 190 beats per minute.

The Commonwealth Games always gives the sport a chance to have a moment. The BBC cover the Games extensively, giving athletes here on the Gold Coast a platform to showcase their abilities and their beloved sports. But, even though the final in Glasgow in 2014 created a real buzz and brought in a terrific audience on TV, the media moved on very quickly after the medals were handed out. We want a relationship but only ever get a one-night stand.

There’s a lot to be said about the prestige, history and aura of a sporting occasion. Look at tennis. No one cares if the matches at Wimbledon are long or there are no disco lights between points because the occasion is so entrenched in the English sporting landscape. People do not necessarily attend because the tennis is good, but because they want to attach themselves to a cultural behemoth. The media support Wimbledon because the public love it; and the public love it because the media support it.

I was in Chicago during the Winter Olympics in February and noticed a group of people gathering around a TV in the locker room to watch speed skating. It was riveting, but would these people have watched if it wasn’t the Olympics? It’s the Olympics – we have to watch the Olympics – because it’s practically put on a plate and spoonfed to us.

James celebrates after winning gold at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. Photograph: Jono Searle/Getty Images

There is a contradiction in cricket perhaps. On one hand they have wisely embraced new formats such as Twenty20, yet Test matches still attract big audiences even though nothing about the format is snappy and they can eke out a draw over five days. People love the longer form of the sport for far wider reasons than the entertainment value of the contest itself.

We watch what our parents watch, what newspapers and broadcasters cover, and what we feel is historically important. Why do football fans turn up on cold, wet afternoons in January to watch yet another goalless draw? It’s not just about the quality of the action. They go for the pies, the collective chanting, the walk to the ground beforehand and because it will form the basis of their pub chat with their pals the following week. They belong to something.

So squash, like many other less recognised sports, has work to do to bring more people onside while taking care not to tweak so many things that it changes its very essence. Our forward-thinking, professional association will keep chipping away and hopefully this exciting new technology will be another step. Some of the sports at the Commonwealth Games may never reach Wimbledon status, but maybe we can inch that way by embracing new ideas. No harm in trying.

• This is an article from James Willstrop’s blog

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