Going to seven makes the cards wilder - Guest Commentary - Professional Bowling Association makes format change - Column

Bowling Digest, August, 2003 by Johnny Campos

WHEN THE PBA DECIDED TO make a format change prior to the 2002-03 season, adding two games to the match-play portion of the Round of 32 seemed insignificant. Going from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven in the round of competition immediately following the 18 games of qualifying? A yawner.

It was one of the latest tweaks to the format that the "new" PBA had introduced the year before. Once, all matches leading up to the TV finals were best-of-five--now, at the PBA, seven-game matches made for much rejoicing.

"The change in format added a definite element of excitement to the tournament," explains Kirk Von Krueger, the PBA director of tournament operations. "The first round of match play was the best-attended round of the week, besides the live ESPN show. With all 32 players bowling at the same time, the competition was very compelling and fun for the fans to watch. The players also seemed to like the change in format as much as the fans enjoyed watching the great competition the seven-game matches created."

And the "tweak" wasn't as statistically insignificant as you'd think. In fact, the difference between a best-of-five and best-of-seven series proved to be huge in 2002-03.

Other pro sports, such as the NBA and major league baseball, have made format changes to extend their playoff series. The NBA went from best-of-five to best-of-seven in its first playoff round in the 2002-03 season, for example. (Only the NBA's first playoff round had been shorter, while the other series leading up to and including the championship round were all best-of-seven.) Extending series in this way plays along with the theory that in longer series, the better teams usually rise to meet the challenge.

That also used to be the belief on the PBA tour, especially in major events. The longer-format tournaments, such as the ones used in the former versions of the PBA National and the Tournament of Champions, usually produced an elite field for the TV finals.

Last season, however, the PBA bucked the trend for its match-play competition, extending the earliest playoff round while keeping the later stages intact with condensed best-of-five matches.

Of course, there were schedule considerations that prevented the PBA from extending the later rounds to the longer format. When the field was cut to the top 16 players, only two of the eight matches could be held on the four lanes set up for the TV finals in the arena-like setting (or in an actual arena). Those sessions generally last about 100 minutes, so adding a potential 40 minutes (or two games) would be time prohibitive for the PBA staff, even though it would be a stiffer test for the players.

But by expanding only the earliest round of match play, the PBA didn't just make it more exciting for the fans and give them more bang for their buck. It also, in effect, made it more difficult to get out of the Round of 32 than it was to advance to the TV finals.

The top pros generally have never needed much of an edge to take advantage of the more be inexperienced players. Adding 40% more games to the opening round, however, might be more than enough to make a big difference for the better players.

"I've still never lost a best-of-seven match out there," says Bryan Goebel, who captured his 10th career title last season. He posted one of the best match-play records of the year, winning his final 12 games, including two in the TV finals, to capture the Medford Open.

In the shorter five-game matches, it's more of a crapshoot. You win the match, or you're out. Players don't get the opportunity to "shake off" a bad outing and then try to make it up in the next few games of round-robin competition. "Funny things can happen in elimination match play," says Bob Glass, the reigning BOWLING DIGEST Senior Pro Bowler of the Year who owns six Senior titles but went winless in the new format last season.

To the bowling purist, the format that produced a true champion probably was the one used by the "old" PBA--minus the TV finals. There were 18 qualifying games, followed by a round-robin of one-game matches for the top 24 bowlers. Ideally, at the end of the final position-round game, the bowler with the highest total pinfall would be declared the winner. Realistically, however, the PBA needed television, so the tournament leader would have to "win" the tournament again in a match on TV. More often than not, he didn't.

But in the new bracket system, all that went out the window. Pinfall determines the cut to 64, whereupon players are split into two brackets, advancing by winning their matches.

Breaking down the 2002-03 season statistically, in best-of-seven bouts the bowler with the early lead generally won. But the longer the matches went, the more chance there was of the trailing player staging a comeback. In other words, if a bowler didn't put his opponent away early, he was in trouble--especially if the match went the distance.

Even a 3-0 lead didn't guarantee a bowler would advance. But of the 91 matches that went 3-0, the bowler with the lead won all but four times (a .956 winning percentage). If a player led 3-1, he was 68-9 (.883).