The PBA is trying to tackle football

Bowling Digest, Spring, 2004 by Dick Evans

FORGET THE NFL'S SUNDAY afternoon telecasts on CBS and Fox. Instead, go straight to ESPN to pick up this season's PBA finals.

You wouldn't be the only one doing so. While many sports avoid going up against football, the PBA doesn't. It reported a 6% increase in its ESPN ratings last season despite going head-to-head with the NFL on 13 of its 20 telecasts.

The new PBA, in its third full season since being purchased by three former Microsoft executives, is bigger and better than ever and in 2003-04 features a record $4.6 million prize fund, six arena finals, and a pair of historic two-hour live telecasts for the first time.

"The arena settings [in particular] allow us to reach larger crowds and help create an atmosphere that our fans and players both respond to," says PBA commissioner Fred Schreyer.

Even better, the PBA's traditional 90-minute telecasts have been expanded to two hours for the marquee events, the ABC Masters and U.S. Open.

"The new PBA has made some great strides in the past three years," says Steve Miller, PBA president and CEO. "We see these strides as major steps in elevating our sport to the next level and increasing sponsorship opportunities on the tour."

The 2003-04 league season takes on extra importance because the PBA has announced plans to run 16 (not including the four majors) all-exempt tour stops in 2004-05. That means that 60 of the 64 finalists will earn exempt berths either by winning tournaments this season or finishing among the leaders in the points standings.

The PBA has announced a points schedule that features 25,000, 20,000, 18,000, 17,000, and 16,000 points for the five TV finalists in each of the 16 regular tour stops and 50,000, 40,000, 36,000, 34,000, and 32,000 points for the TV combatants in three of the four major events. (No points will be handed out in the Tournament of Champions because it's an invitational event.) This means it's imperative that every PBA player enter all 19 tournaments open to the general membership, because even the also-rans can earn points.

Just when you begin to think there is going to be harmony in America's bowling world after three years of bickering, someone rocks the boat.

The single membership controversy, which has plagued bowling's membership organizations since the beginning of the 21st century, appeared to be resolved after a taskforce meeting last August 11. That's when the ABC, WIBC, and USA Bowling leaders agreed to changes that would resolve the sticky points preventing single membership to take effect.

Then came word that the fourth membership organization, YABA, decided at its October board meeting to delay taking a vote on the plan to merge the four groups into the United States Bowling Congress (USBC).

In my book, the YABA does not have the necessary resources to go it alone, no matter what the ABC and WIBC delegates decide next year. And the Bowling Proprietors Association of America's proposed Contemporary Bowling Association--the most likely alternative to the USBC--will have a muted impact at best. I say this having witnessed a BPAA-formed junior bowling organization quickly go down in flames back in the 1960s.

There is no way that any BPAA bowler-membership group can thrive nationwide because nearly half of the 5,811 bowling centers in America do not belong to the BPAA. Besides, most of the people who direct local and state junior programs are volunteer workers for the nonprofit YABA. I can't see those volunteers working for free at a for-profit bowling center.

Hopefully, single membership will be resolved once and for all when the YABA national leaders jump back aboard the USBC bandwagon.

The ABC's five-tournament deal with the National Bowling Stadium in Reno was scheduled to expire after the 2007 tournament. But now the ABC and Reno officials have worked out a tentative agreement so the giant ABC National Championship Tournament will return to Nevada again in 2010, 2013, and 2016.

It will be up to the ABC delegates to ratify a letter of intent during their national convention in Reno on March 19.

The ABC executives who worked on this project deserve a lot of credit. It appears that they not only saved the always-popular tournament in Reno but also may have saved the $50 million National Bowling Stadium.