Squash Is Back at the Olympics and Australia Wants 1 Million Players — Is Your Venue Ready for the Equipment Surge?

The Short Answer

Squash makes its Olympic debut at LA28 — its first Games ever. Squash Australia has set a national goal of getting back to 1 million players and building 20 new facilities, with Brisbane 2032 adding a decade of momentum.

That means a wave of newcomers and lapsed players walking onto courts who do not own a racquet or protective eyewear. They book online. They play after hours. They will not wait at a counter that is closed.

Squash equipment rental in Australia built on an unmanned 24/7 kiosk captures exactly that crowd — and pays for itself in roughly 4-5 months.

Why LA28 Changes the Math for Squash Venues

Squash has campaigned for Olympic inclusion for decades. LA28 finally delivers it. Olympic status is the single biggest participation multiplier a sport can get — it drives broadcast coverage, school programs, club sign-ups and, critically, a flood of curious first-timers.

Squash Australia has been explicit about the target: rebuild participation toward 1 million players and add 20 new facilities nationally, riding the LA28 spotlight straight into the Brisbane 2032 home Games (source: Squash Australia).

Here is the part venue operators underestimate: a participation surge is also an equipment surge. Lapsed players sold their gear years ago. Brand-new players never owned any. Olympic-inspired walk-ins arrive with a phone and a court booking, not a racquet bag.

The First-Timer Problem (and Why It’s a Revenue Opportunity)

Squash has a higher equipment barrier than people assume. To play safely and properly a newcomer needs:

• A squash racquet (different from tennis, badminton or pickleball)
• Protective eyewear — strongly recommended and mandatory in many junior and club settings
• A non-marking court shoe and a squash-specific ball

For a casual returner or an Olympic-curious first-timer, buying all of that before they even know if they like the sport is a hard no. So they either don’t play — or they need to rent on the spot.

Now layer in how squash courts actually get used in Australia: courts are increasingly booked online and played after hours, slotted into early mornings, lunch breaks and late evenings around work. That is precisely when a staffed pro shop is shut.

A manual counter cannot serve this demand. An unmanned kiosk can.

How Unmanned Rental Fits Squash Specifically

A Dark Pro Shops kiosk is a self-service, cashless, cloud-connected dispensing unit that runs 24/7 with no staff. A player taps their phone, the door opens, they grab a racquet and eyewear, and the rental is logged in real time. They return it to the same unit.

This maps onto squash’s behaviour almost perfectly:

• After-hours play is captured instead of lost — the kiosk never closes.
• Online court bookings flow straight into a self-serve rental moment.
• Eyewear plus racquet can be bundled in a single tap, removing the safety barrier for newcomers.
• One unit also covers your tennis, badminton, padel and pickleball renters — squash doesn’t need its own dedicated counter.

For a multi-sport centre adding squash courts to chase the LA28 wave, that last point matters: you’re not staffing a new revenue line, you’re adding inventory to a machine you may already run.

The ROI: What a Squash-Ready Kiosk Actually Costs

The economics are deliberately conservative, and they hold up for a squash-focused venue capturing revival demand.

Run the numbers on a modest volume:

There’s precedent. A Sydney indoor sports centre deployed kiosks in late 2022, recouped the hardware cost within roughly two months, ran 30+ rentals a day, and built a database of 1,000+ customer contacts in a matter of months (source: Dark Pro Shops). Those 1,000 contacts are the marketing asset that turns a one-off Olympic-curious visitor into a returning member.

Capturing the Casual Revival Crowd

The strategic insight for LA28 is that the new squash audience is casual first, committed later. They watch the Olympics, they want to try it, they book a court with a mate. If renting a racquet and eyewear is frictionless, they play, they enjoy it, and some convert to members. If it’s friction — closed counter, no gear, awkward — they walk.

An unmanned kiosk turns that fragile first session into a captured transaction and a captured contact. It is the lowest-staff, highest-availability way to convert Olympic attention into recurring venue revenue.

This is the same playbook driving demand across racket sports — see how it’s playing out in pickleball’s 96,000-player boom.

Get Ready Before the Surge Hits

LA28 and Brisbane 2032 are not distant — the participation curve starts climbing well before the opening ceremony, and the venues that capture it are the ones with gear ready 24/7.

See full hardware specs and the transparent pricing breakdown, or learn how the kiosk works end to end. When you’re ready to scope a squash-ready setup for your courts, contact us and we’ll model the ROI for your venue.

International reader? Outside Australia and New Zealand, the same product is supplied by our global sister brand, KioskForce.

Data sources: Squash Australia; LA28 Organising Committee; Dark Pro Shops product and case data.