Sean Choi, a former College Squash player, started up his own squash podcast, The Rally Report, and also commentates for the National Squash League (NSL) outside of his full-time job. Choi started playing squash in Seoul, Korea at around 10 years old, following in his father’s footsteps, who picked up squash whilst at Columbia Business School.
In his early squash days, Choi says the squash community in Seoul is very small, but he knows a few others who have gone a similar route to him, choosing to continue their education on the East Coast of the US.
“I got a rude awakening when I went to summer camp here and I realized I have a long way to go. That got me intrigued into wanting to get better and hoping there was an avenue to getting into the States.”
Choi says that there aren’t too many PSA players from South Korea, mainly because of the funding structure, which can de-incentivize them to want to travel abroad to play tournaments, which turns things into more of a regional battle, rather than a global one against other PSA players.
Choi came to the US to go to boarding school after speaking to a US Coach who did a camp in Korea, and all of his family still lives in Korea, although other family members followed a similar pursuit of education in the US.
Choi played at Wesleyan, playing in the #1 spot on the team ranked between 23-28 in the nation. Despite enjoying College Squash so much, he feels that he would never have quite made it on the PSA tour. Choi predicts that players on the top 6 teams playing in the top 4 on their respective rosters are usually the ones who can realistically make it on the PSA tour.
Choi’s full-time job is in consulting, with podcasting being his passion project. “I’m a huge fan of squash” is the main reason he cites for starting up The Rally Report.
“There’s a huge appetite for becoming a fan of the player and following their journey, and to do that you need more interviews with players, getting to know the players, and I think that was a missing piece in squash. I thought, you know what, a lot of peers my age have just gone pro and it would be great if they’d be warm to me reaching out to them about potential interviews.”
Choi feels that one of the best avenues for growth in squash is through getting to know the players on the PSA and hearing their candid stories without putting on a facade for cameras. He says that this is how fanbases are built, and he felt this was missing from squash, prompting him to where he is now, having conducted over 70 interviews so far for The Rally Report.
Speaking on situations where PSA professionals are ‘demonized’ for their behavior on court, he says that he goes back and forth with his opinions on Mostafa Asal, who is known for being controversial. “I do think it’s imperative that the sport takes control of the situation one way or another because right now it's an unprecedented area of what he's doing on court.”
Looking ahead with The Rally Report, he says he is really happy with how things are going, and just wants to achieve the goal of getting stories out about the PSA professionals, from their perspectives. “I get the most joy when I get someone a bit unhinged.”
As for the NSL, he says he understands why some people are apprehensive about the new scoring system, but he thinks that the league is a good thing for the sport, especially in the US where there is such a big emphasis on cities having their sports teams.
Choi has some apprehension about the Olympics, and feels that the sport as a whole is putting too much pressure on the Olympics to be the event that lifts the sport into new levels of viewership. Even though it is obviously a huge opportunity for the sport, Choi expresses that we should still be pushing on with plenty of other initiatives to continue growing the sport.