How do we get more people to play the game? How do we get more people (non-players and gamers) to watch the game? The two biggest dilemmas faced in racquetball.
I have watched the evolution of the sport from the point of view of owning a racquet club for twenty-nine years and have seen the dynamic improvement in technology and the tremendous advancement in physical skills exhibited by the best players. How can they keep getting better and better? I congratulate you however; As we get older, most of us can’t keep getting better. However I see the age demographic has increased and in fact the most common player entering the sport today is one who played ten or fifteen years ago, left it to have a family or a career, remember what a great sport the racquetball. and he wants to play and get fit. We can only imagine what that’s like for someone who thought he was pretty good, he’s out of shape, facing a bigger racket and a ball that travels much faster than I’ve ever seen. Pretty daunting I guess, and many never go back a second time.
Dilemma number one: How do we make the game fit for the vast majority of players who are just starting out, trying to get their game back, working hard to get better but progressing slowly, just wanting to enjoy the game, or competitive players who can’t take the time to play well and stay in shape. Let’s be honest; Racquetball is a very demanding sport for those who take it seriously. You can’t just walk on the court two or three times a month, play your best and not suffer for a couple of days after each game. After a while, people start to choose between pain and golf. Personally, I think the reason more women don’t play racquetball is because it’s so demanding.
Perhaps the answer lies in developing a level of play that is less physically demanding but develops skills that are just as admirable as serving the ball at 150 miles per hour. Those skills are, of course, touch, strategy, trickery, quickness, and maybe even cutting the ball if we get rid of the ridiculous “carry rule.” The answer might be to slow down the ball and keep it in play to create longer plays. You might even see more diving from some of the old guys if they could get close enough every once in a while. It could also improve TV viewing and even allow non-gamers to appreciate watching the sport. I know from taking a lot of non-players to see the sport at its highest level that they can’t follow the ball let alone know what’s going on and get bored and don’t enjoy it.
I’m not suggesting that making another “dead” ball will accomplish the above. The goal here is to give slower players more time to get to the ball, making exchanges often last longer and more opportunities for fancy shot selection. The ball should bounce but more slowly. Can this be done? I think so. Make the ball bigger. Possibly this innovation, if perfected, could also lead to another benefit of making the ball easier to watch on TV.
I know most of the readers of this are probably advanced players and love to see the sport played at its fastest level like I do, but think about yourself a few years from now. Your skills, quickness, and stamina will all wane one day, but if the game becomes one of skill rather than stamina, players could compete more successfully at later ages, not to mention there could be some longevity benefits for players. elbows, shoulders and knees.
This is not a radical idea, but a proven one, as one of the oldest and arguably most popular sports in the world, table tennis, recently faced the same problems as racquetball. Table tennis players had begun to increase the thickness of the fast sponge coating on their blades, making the game too fast and difficult to watch on TV, so fast that changes were necessary to keep the viewer engaged. . In 2000, the International Table Tennis Federation instituted several rule changes intended to make table tennis more viable as a televised spectator sport. First, 38mm BBs were officially replaced by 40mm BBs. This increased the air resistance of the ball and effectively slowed down play, resulting in longer rallies and greater spectator appreciation.
In 2001, the International Table Tennis Federation made another change to the game and service rules to increase the excitement and interest in the match, which led me to another dilemma of racquetball.
Dilemma number two: how do we make games more dramatic, exciting and suspenseful for the viewer?
Here, there is also a model proven in table tennis. To create more suspense and excitement, they changed the 21 point game, server change every five points, to 11 point games, win by two, serve change every two points. This certainly made the games faster and minimized the service advantage. Matches are played to any odd number of games, usually five.
This scoring method results in faster point fluctuations, it also minimizes server advantage, and the “win by two” requirement creates additional suspense and excitement for viewers. Another benefit is the flexibility in the number of games played. It would end up in five-game single-elimination tournaments and three-game round-robin tournaments. Lastly, the most important benefit relates to dilemma number one, by making games shorter, skill becomes a bigger factor than stamina, allowing weekenders, unconditionals, novices, families, old men and hopefully more women just enjoy the game. because the sport is a little less demanding and even more fun.
I know that more advanced players simply because of their aggressive nature may oppose these ideas just as the Chinese opposed changes in table tennis. They felt it was an effort to stop their dominance of the sport. Yet today China still dominates because superior skill and athleticism will always come through just as it does in racquetball.
I encourage you to find some ping pong clips on YouTube.com and see how the ball can be seen even at speeds of 100+ mph and over long distances, all without the benefit of professional lighting or photography. USA Table Tennis, a sports organization that faced many challenges and issues similar to those we face today, made adjustments, has remained an Olympic sport since 1988, and now claims to be the most popular racket sport in the world.
Should we keep asking the same questions and getting the same answers as always? get more kids into the sport, promote racquetball in high school and college, get more women playing, get major sponsors, get racquetball on TV and into the Olympics, hoping that one day we’ll get a different result. Not likely.
Maybe it’s time for a change in racquetball.
