Squash is a fast-paced racquet sport where players compete against each other by hitting the ball against the wall to rebound towards their opponent. These squash statistics explore how popular the sport is in the UK in 2021 and how demand for the sport has adapted over the past few years.
Squash Statistics UK 2021: The Short Version
We have summed up our key findings from our Squash statistics here. More in depth analysis and research can be found further on in the article.
- There are over 400,000 searches every year in the UK for the term “Squash”.
- The popularity of Squash in the UK has steadily declined since 2004.
- There are an average of 4,300 searches per month in the UK for the term “squash courts near me”, indicating the number of active players.
How Popular is Squash in the UK in 2021?
In 2020, approximately 260,000 people participated in the sport of squash in the UK which has reduced from a figure of 425,000 people in 2016. However, even though numbers seem to be decreasing, we conducted a keyword analysis with the keyword tool, KWFinder, in order to discover the number of people searching for the sport in the UK. We found that the term “Squash” is searched 33,600 times on average every month in the UK which when calculated annually, this figure equals over 400,000 searches per year.
We have also conducted a Google trends analysis in order to observe how the demand for the sport has changed over the years. The graphic displaying our findings is below.
Google Trends Data for the sport of squash since 2004 in the UK.
As you can see, the demand for the sport in the UK has steadily declined since 2004 when it comes to search volumes. This suggests that the popularity of the sport is dying which could be due to many factors such as a decreased number of courts and lack of TV coverage.
How Many People Watch Squash in the UK in 2021?
Squash is viewed predominantly online through the likes of SquashTV on YouTube which is a channel that has 143,000 subscribers and over 123 million total video views on its channel. There are over 4,000 videos on the channel and the sole video with the most views has 2.2 million. However, this being said, this number is a worldwide audience so in order to calculate an estimate for the number of UK viewers, we have conducted a keyword analysis. We found that the search term “Squash TV” is searched 960 times per month on average in the UK and 3,100 times per month when looking at the global market. Therefore, we can estimate that 31% of Squash TV’s Youtube subscribers are from the UK. Therefore there are roughly 44,330 Squash TV subscribers from the UK.
How Many People Play Squash in the UK in 2021?
We also analysed the total number of Squash players in the UK, once again analysing search volumes for keywords in order to get a better understanding of participation of Squash. We analysed the following terms.
Search Term | Average Monthly Searches in the UK |
Squash Courts Near Me | 4,300 |
Squash Racket | 3,700 |
Squash Ball | 2,200 |
Squash Shoes | 1,300 |
How To Play Squash | 400 |
The search term “squash courts near me” is searched 4,300 times per month in the UK and indicates the number of active players which are actively seeking for a new court to play on. We expect the number of actual active players is much higher than this figure as regular players are unlikely to search for a squash court as they will already have one in mind. This being said, this figure still remains a good indicator of the popularity of the sport in the UK.
The terms “squash racket”, “squash ball” and “squash shoes” all indicate the intent of a regular player looking to improve or replace their current sporting equipment. Of these terms, the most commonly searched piece of equipment is “squash racket” which is searched 3,700 times per month in the UK. This emphasises the number of active players and those looking to improve their game.
“How to play squash” indicates the search intent of somebody who is interested in the sport and looking to learn how to play. The low search volume of around 400 searches per month indicates the lack of new people looking to play the sport of Squash in the UK.
Summary: Squash Statistics Roundup
To conclude, while squash is still popular in the UK, popularity has dwindled over the past few years and the popularity doesn’t quite compete with more popular sports such as football.
We hope this article has helped you better understand the world of squash in the UK.
