It is also useful to see this data on an individually ranked player as is visually illustrated in a bar chart below. The above pie charts represent the total prize money for a given ranking range, ranks 3 – 4 for example. The same logic can be applied to all other tournaments and pie chart segments. For example, if we take the ’16 Draw’ pie chart as an example, 20% of the prize money is given to the rank #1, 14% of the prize money is given to rank #2, and for each of the players ranked between 3 – 4 each get 9% of the money, making a total of 18% for that rank range (in this case the segment represents 18% of the total prize money). In each segment, the text indicates the percentage prize money that is allocated for all players within the final rank range and the colour of the segment indicates the ranking rage which is provided in the central plot legend. This is what is depicted in the pie charts below. To get a better understanding of how the prize money is split among the ranks, the total prize money per rank range can be illustrated as a percentage of the total prize money. Although the total prize money may vary depending on gender, the same prize money breakdown is applied identically for both male and female tournaments. The percentage breakdown of the prize money for the tournament ranks is provided in the following table, where the different coloured tables represent tournaments with different numbers of players and thus different tournament types.
The amount of money a player earns from a tournament depends on the number of players in each tournament and the percentages attributed to the final ranks of these tournaments. Therefore, a larger total prize money does not necessarily mean that participants get more money. In contrast, the World Tour Finals has a reasonably large prize money with a lower number of players (8 players). Also the Platinum tournaments have a larger number of players (48 players) than the Gold, Silver and Bronze tournaments (24 players each). Although the World Championship has the largest prize money, we can see, from the above table, that it is split among the largest number of players (64 players). The above plot however does not take into account how the money is split nor the number of players in each tournament type. The World Tour Finals prize money is between that of Platinum and Gold tournaments. The World Championship has by far the largest prize money at $500k. It can be seen that, as expected, the prize money decreases as one goes from Platinum to Bronze. The difference in the prize money between all the different tournaments is clearly evident in this plot. The slightly lighter blocks on top of the Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze tournaments indicate the ranges of the prize money variation. These numbers are graphically represented in the following chart where the tournament types are provided on the x-axis, and the prize money range is on the y-axis. The ‘Player Draw’ column represents the number of players in the tournaments. The following table gives the prize money ranges for the PSA World Tour tournaments in the 2018 – 2019 season where the values provided are for both genders. In fact the PSA World Tour is split into several tournament types which are defined by the on-site gross prize money offered. We must first realize that not all tournaments have an equal amount of prize money. This blog however solely deals specifically with the 2018 – 2019 season. Ranking points and percentage prize money breakdowns may vary from season to season, as the PSA restructures and refines its prize money and ranking points schemes.
This blog post investigates how the prize money and ranking points are split between the tournament contestants (PSA World Tour tournaments only). This is partially due to the new tour structure which was put in place with the aim of increasing the earning potential and playing opportunities across the entire PSA Tour. The 2018 – 2019 season saw the prize money of the women’s tour increase by 6.6% and the men’s tour increased by 12.2%. Each season there are announcements of record-breaking prize money tournaments for both men’s and women’s squash.
Professional squash is becoming more and more lucrative with the prize money available increasing year after year.