Trapped in the Wrong System II: Back to Basics

Squash in the Netherlands has a governing body that unintentionally operates within a system that undermines its own right to exist. Not out of unwillingness, but because the squash landscape differs fundamentally from the association-based model on which it was founded. Where "Trapped in the Wrong System" exposed that mismatch, this analysis goes a step further: who are the actors, what drives them, and where is the only lever that actually works for SBN?

The Dutch tennis system is organised through clubs affiliated with the KNLTB. A player becomes a member of the KNLTB via their club, not directly. The club is not an optional layer but the primary structure within which the sport functions. Clubs organise the sport; the governing body organises the clubs. To sustain this system, the governing body receives an annual contribution per player via NOC*NSF. Tennis is thus structured as an association sport without a profit motive.

Squash differs fundamentally from this. The sport is played in commercial centres where court occupancy and revenue per court are the primary drivers. Membership is not a basic structure but a choice. The sport is embedded in a system where commercial exploitation and freedom of contract are central. Squash must not merely break even — it must be profitable.

Within this playing field, SBN must relate to three actors: the player, the club, and the centre. The player is the user of the sport but provides no structural organisational foundation. The centre owns the infrastructure and focuses primarily on occupancy and return. The club organises players within the sporting context, comparable to the role that associations play in traditional association sports such as tennis.

Each actor is driven by its own interests and incentives, which over time has led to a situation where the club chairman and the centre owner are in many cases the same person. The assumed tension between club logic and centre logic therefore does not play out between two parties but internally, within a single actor who is simultaneously a commercial operator and a sporting organiser. This combination of roles is not inherently problematic, but it does have a structural consequence: the commercial centre logic becomes dominant while the club role remains subordinate or insufficiently developed.

SBN has nothing structural to offer individual players or commercial centres. The player does not need the governing body to play squash; the centre does not need it to rent out courts. For clubs, the situation is fundamentally different: a club needs a governing body for organisation, legitimacy, and support. That mutual dependency makes the club the only viable entry point for SBN.

It is worth recalling that a governing body that directly binds players or serves commercial centres is effectively positioning itself as a market player — a role it is not designed for and one that undermines its legitimacy as a system organiser. In doing so, it also undermines its own claim to NOC*NSF funding, a contribution reserved for governing bodies that organise the sport, not for parties that commercially serve it. The strategy intended to generate funding disqualifies SBN as a beneficiary of that very funding. SBN is sawing off the branch on which it sits.

The role of SBN therefore emphatically does not lie in directly binding individual players, but in organising the structure within which clubs can function effectively. Because the club chairman and centre owner are typically the same person, SBN focuses in essence on a single conversation — with the centre owner as a dual actor.

The message to that actor is not normative but strategic: a strong club is good for his own occupancy and revenue. SBN helps him recognise that investing in the club structure serves his commercial interest, and then provides the support to give that club genuine substance. Concretely, this means offering frameworks for a workable balance between courts, members, and membership fees, as well as supporting clubs in building and growing their membership base.

A simple example illustrates the underlying dynamic. If a centre allocates one members' court per 40 members and the club charges €500 in annual membership fees, the centre secures court revenue of €20,000 per year. That same revenue can be achieved by allocating one members' court per 100 members at a membership fee of €200 per year. It requires little explanation that at €200 the barrier to joining a club is considerably lower — and with it, the likelihood of a stable, growing membership base structurally greater. Within this range, the owner of both centre and club determines which model he chooses. That choice is economic, but it has direct consequences for the sporting viability of the club.

When SBN positions itself in this way, membership registration follows logically from participation. It is no longer a separate act of choice but embedded in the organisational structure of the sport. The role of SBN shifts from membership organisation to system organisation. The focus is not on optimising individual participation but on activating the centre owner in his club role and establishing the conditions under which that role can deliver results. Only there does a structure emerge that generates durable sporting and economic value. A strategy that primarily focuses on directly binding individual players misses the only lever that actually works within this system and is therefore not viable. Now that the playing field and its actors are understood, there is a solid foundation to turn the tide.