In 2021, I wrote an article called the “Big Money Challenge Response“. I would still do that project if I won the lottery, but I’ve seen that the vast majority of players don’t care much about racquetball beyond their local gym scene until it is much too late.
There have been a number of crowd funding requests in 2025, mostly by Team USA members (and some from Team Bolivia just today) for the Guatemala event in April.
Jake & Sam Bredenbeck
Lexi York
Michelle Key
I donated to the one’s that I could, as I was able. I think that crowd funding for racquetball should perhaps take a different bigger approach in 2025 and 2026.
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If I had an ambition to make a true difference in the pro level game (as opposed to the 2021 article), my goal would be very different and much longer term.
So, what I would be looking to find, would be 500 players that were willing to donate $1,000 per year for 5 years. (Yes, this is $500,000 per year, significantly more than either tour hopes to get in 2025 or 2026 in advertising fees/sponsorships and prize money.)
You may ask, what would that benefitting tour be tasked to do with $500,000 per year to make it worthwhile to those 500 donors?
1) Set a schedule of 8 events per year.
1a) Provide $40,000 to the players in prize money at each of those events (nearly double the current amount).
1b) Work conscientiously to keep travel costs for the broadcast team below $5,000 per event, including flights and hotel rooms.
1c) Pay the technology team $1,000 for their time and the on-air talent an equivalent amount, so that they are invested in attending and performing well.
1d) Use $3,000 to work with the local gym to upgrade and improve the broadcast court, painting, repairing glass walls, upgrading internet service, adding or updating ethernet access, and power distribution for the broadcast booth.
2) Use up to $50,000 per year to upgrade broadcast equipment. The new standard should be 4K at 60 FPS uploading without interruption. Some of that money would go to cameras, video switchers, cabling, headsets, audio mixers, etc. The subsequent years (2-5), this amount should drop to less than $10,000 to replace and upgrade individual pieces of equipment as they are damaged in travel or made obsolete by newer and better tools.
3) Pay a commissioner $50,000 per year to work a minimum of 20 hours per week, exclusively on:
3a) Arranging new facilities for the tour to visit.
3b) Arranging local contacts for the next event with college students particularly in fraternities or sororities that support the physical fitness of their members, so that stands will be full for every match. If the local college doesn’t have courts, this should factor into the decision making in step 3a.
3c) Working with existing sponsors and local tournament directors to acquire new sponsorships and additional advertisers.
3d) Supervising more social media with the funds acquired from existing sponsors and new sponsors/advertisers. These funds should go both to directly paying effective social media personnel, and also to placing paid ads on the social media platforms with the goal of gaining attendance for the pro divisions at these 8 events. A crowd that fills all available seating at the club the event is being held at is the goal.
3e) Working with local radio stations, newspapers, and TV channels to get the professional players featured in stories while the event is in town. Using some of the new funds generated by sponsors/advertisers to run ads on those same stations / papers / TV channels.
SIDEBAR 1: The pro tour stop must help the local club stay in business and grow. Apathetic facilities that are allowing the event simply to get the weekend’s rental fee should be avoided. The local club must be enthusiastic in their efforts to get the message out that 1) they have the pro tour coming and 2) they have courts for the amateurs to use after the event is over. I have been to too many clubs where the local players told me that they had no idea that the pros were coming or even that there was a tournament taking over the courts for the weekend. That experience needs to stop and must be part of step 3a for the commissioner and 3d for the social media personnel.
SIDEBAR 2: The commissioner should also take a commission on each sponsorship acquired / advertising sale made. Ideally, the commissions and the base salary would allow the commissioner to work on nothing other than promoting their sport thru their tour.
4) Provide exclusive benefits to those donors. Some examples might include:
4a) Perhaps a second stream, solely available to those 500, commentated solely by the pro players not competing at that specific time. Perhaps a second stream without commentary, but still exclusive to the 500.
4b) One free amateur division entry at each of the 8 events that has amateur divisions. (I do not believe that there need to be amateur divisions for a pro tour to be viable and valuable.)
4c) One or two sponsor doubles opportunities per year. The exact details of this would need to be worked out, as it would require more players to show up earlier to more events.
4d) Exclusive gear. Find a company willing to make 1500 gloves in the size the 500 sponsors wear and provide those 3 custom gloves that aren’t available anywhere else to the sponsors. Nice jackets or racquet bags or even 500 custom racquets could be done. This exclusive gear should be paid for using existing sponsorship money, if possible. If not, see 3c.
4e) Recognition. Some individuals will be able or willing to commit to more than $1,000 per year, and those should get extra recognition. If you watch YouTube videos these days, you will frequently see a Patrons/Donors listing at the end of each and every video that channel produces. Dedicated recognition on the tour’s website, on the tour’s broadcasts, and for those that take on more than the standard share, dedicated recognition in the social media posts throughout the year.
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So, this was about 20 minutes of brainstorming while in traffic. How would you refine the donor benefits or tour responsibilities to make this more likely to happen? What would it take for you to support something like this for USA Racquetball instead of a pro tour? What would you want from USAR to fund them beyond the membership fees?
