First Canary Wharf, now Grand Central as fans race for tickets
By SEAN REUTHE
Tickets for the 2018 J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions (ToC), the world’s largest spectator squash event, will be available for purchase commencing Friday October 6, 2017 at 9:00AM EST at the www.tocsquash.com website.
The PSA World Series tournament celebrates its 21st anniversary in Grand Central Terminal, New York this coming January 18-25, 2018, offering 25 sessions of play on the all-glass Oracle NetSuite Challenge court while providing both reserved ticket seating and free viewing to the public for the entirety of the event. Tickets range in price from $8 to $170.
The 2018 J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions bears little resemblance to its inaugural version played on a club court at the Boston Athletic Club in 1930. Since that time, the ToC, as it is affectionately known to players and fans, has blossomed into one of the best known and most viewed squash tournaments in the world.
The sold-out, highly influential event sells more than 10,000 individual tickets, boasts 200,000 live spectators, racks up top annual viewership on SQUASHTV and Eurosport Player, as well as the most extensive international broadcast coverage, and features $330,000 worth of prize money across both the men’s and women’s draws, with the prize purse shared equally.
“The ToC highlights all that squash has to offer as a compelling sport, valuable business opportunity and committed community,” said Tournament Chairman John Nimick, President of Squash Engine Inc., the tournament promoter.
“Grand Central is an amazing venue which allows us to introduce squash, and the incredible athletes that play it at the highest level, to literally thousands of newcomers, while enveloping the ToC with the access, high quality hospitality and branding attributes that sponsors value.
“We will have more than 20 countries and six continents represented among the 112 men’s and women’s competitors, and the qualified broadcast value of their matches will exceed $40 million USD. The tournament is proud to continue its support of the urban squash and development programs StreetSquash and CitySquash as its official charities and to partner with NYSquash to engage the entire metropolitan squash community.”
In 1995, the ToC was one of the first events to be staged in Vanderbilt Hall when the venue was made available for public use. Then World No.1 Jansher Khan won his second title and lifted the trophy for the first time in Grand Central Terminal.
In the 20 years since that the ToC has been contested in Grand Central, all but three of the titleholders have been World No.1 players. The championship, absent from Grand Central Terminal during its renovation from 1996-1998, returned to Vanderbilt Hall in 1999. The ToC is the only sports championship presented annually in Grand Central Terminal.
The J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions is one of eight World Series events sanctioned by the Professional Squash Association (PSA), one of five to offer equal prize money for both men and women and the only one to have been staged in the same venue for two decades. Fans will be able to catch the action in Grand Central from the ticketed seats in the stadium, free standing room at the front wall or on closed circuit TV screens in Great Northern Food Hall on the west side of Vanderbilt Hall.
J.P. Morgan, a global financial services company, is returning for its 10th year of Platinum title sponsorship. Gold Sponsor Lexington Partners, the world’s largest independent manager of secondary private equity and co-investment funds, marks its 20th year of ToC sponsorship. ToC’s hospitality partner for the second year will be the Great Northern Food Hall, located in Vanderbilt Hall across the from the ToC glass court and created by culinary entrepreneur Claus Meyer, founder of the New Nordic cuisine movement.
ToC History: http://www.tocsquash.com/toc-history
For sponsorship/ boxholder information, please contact John Nimick via telephone (617-731-6874) or by email: [email protected]
For media inquiries/ program advertising, please contact Beth Rasin via telephone (917- 992-2281) or by email: [email protected]
Picture courtesy of PSA and ToC