The Professional Squash Association (PSA) has today unveiled its new tour structure and announced an exciting rebrand for professional squash, which comes into effect today ahead of the 2024-25 season.
The PSA Tour will be renamed to the PSA Squash Tour and will feature four divisions: World Events, Challenger Events, Satellite Events and Federation Events.
The new tour structure has been developed to create a more stable and longer-term calendar of top-tier tournaments in the build-up to the LA28 Olympic Games as well as placing greater emphasis on increasing the number of Challenger and Satellite tournaments. It is envisaged that this will create increased earning potential and playing opportunities for professional squash athletes.
There will be a maximum of 57 men’s and 57 women’s World Events per season, while two new event tiers – Diamond and Copper – have been created.
Diamond-tier events will offer up a minimum of $600,000 in total player compensation – a figure which will increase each season – and will feature men’s and women’s draws with 48 players in each. Qualifying competitions, featuring 32 men and 32 women, will also be staged before Diamond events, with four players from each draw qualifying for the main draw.
The 2024-25 season will feature two Diamond-tier events – the CIB Egyptian Open, which will kick off the World Events calendar on August 30, and the British Open, which takes place in June 2025.
The draw size for Platinum tournaments has been reduced to 32 players per division to increase the earning potential for competing players and safeguard the quality of entries of other World Events.
Copper-tier tournaments sit below Gold, Silver and Bronze tournaments and offer a minimum of $25,000 in total compensation per division.
Challenger Events will continue to give the world’s most exciting up-and-coming players the opportunity to compete against some of squash’s most experienced professionals, with tournaments offering prize money between $3,000 and $15,000.
Satellite Events and Federation Events are designed to create a pathway for players to join the professional circuit. Federation Events are run under the auspices of the World Squash Federation, regional federations or national federations.
New logos for the PSA Squash Tour, the PSA as a whole and the PSA Foundation have also been unveiled with a new colour scheme being implemented across all branding materials to redefine the visual identity of professional squash.
“The unveiling of our new tour structure marks the next chapter for professional squash,” said PSA Chief Executive Alex Gough.
“The new PSA Squash Tour structure has been designed to create a consistent and high-quality calendar of tournaments at the World Events level, whilst also accelerating the growth of the professional game across the board.
“This new tour structure forms a key part of PSA’s long-term strategy, with our aim by the end of the 2027-28 season to increase the total amount of events on the tour to over 1,500 and grow total player compensation to $18,000,000.
“It was also important for us to refresh and modernise our logo and branding to better reflect our brand values as we embark on this new chapter. With the creation of our new tour structure and the LA28 Olympic Games on the horizon, it’s an exciting time to be involved in professional squash.”
Details on the 2024-25 calendar will be unveiled shortly.