England Squash and Racketball announces five year partnership with Dunlop

Dunlop™, the world’s number one squash brand, has signed a five year deal to become a key sponsorship partner of national governing body England Squash & Racketball (ESR).

The deal, worth in excess of £500,000, sees Dunlop become the Official Development Partner to ESR and lead sponsor of several high profile events including the Mini Squash Programme, Premier Squash League and the National Racketball Championships.

Dunlop, which sponsors elite athletes such as England’s World No.2 Nick Matthew, has enjoyed a long standing association with professional squash and is now expanding its links to focus on supporting both squash and racketball at grass roots and development level.

Squash and Racketball are among the most popular sports in England with more than half a million adults playing each month in over 1700 facilities across the country. Both sports are easy to play and are enjoyed by people of all ages from five to 80 years old. Racketball is a similar game to squash and is played with a bigger, bouncier ball and a slightly larger headed racket.

Nick Rider, chief executive of England Squash and Racketball, said: “Squash is one of the few sports where England has genuine world class talent with four men and three women ranked in the top 10 in the World. We want to continue this tradition which is why the partnership will help increase resources at a grass roots level to make the sport more accessible to all.

“One of our strategic aims over the next five years is to introduce 122,000 children to squash and racketball and this partnership will help us achieve that.

“The announcement of the partnership is an important milestone for us as we have been working with Oaks Consultancy in restructuring our sponsorship offering in order to create more value for sponsors and revenues for the sport. We are proud to have Dunlop as our partner as we endeavour to grow the sports and our sponsorship family.”

Barry Leach, Chief Executive of Dunlop said, “We’re delighted to announce the partnership with ESR. Developing Squash and Racketball at grassroots level is of paramount importance to the sports future and Dunlop, the World’s Number 1 Squash Brand, is delighted to be a part of this.”