PSBA10
09-22-2009, 02:27 AM
Have you ever wondered who has the best team in your city/county association? I know I did. A number of years ago I decided to find out. I developed a tournament to determine who the best is. It was called the Tournament of Champions.
Participation was limited to the champions of each certified league in the association. There were 3 divisions: men, women, and mixed. We crowned a champion in each. We bowled 3 games using a handicap method of 100% of 1150 (5 bowlers at 230 per bowler). This made the tournament simply pins over average. I then took the net scores and seeded the top 5 teams in each division. The top 5 then faced off in a stepladder final using a 2 game Baker format. One game was bowled on each lane of a pair.
Each team was required to pay a $100 entry fee which was all prize money. One of our houses gave us free lineage. (They recovered that money and quite a bit more in bar business during the Baker stepladder finals. No one left the center. Each tournament looked like a PBA event with all the spectators.) Quite a few of the leagues ran special 50/50’s to foot the entry fee for their champions.
I had the local newspaper as the primary sponsor. Each day the paper would highlight different league champions so that by tournament time all participants had their profiles published along with advertising the many smaller tournament sponsors. They also did a full page spread of the tournament including pictures of the champions. It worked out great. Ultimately I got the sports editor involved in bowling.
I ran this tournament for 5 years until I lost the primary sponsor. Maybe I can get it started up again. I wonder who is the best this year???
Participation was limited to the champions of each certified league in the association. There were 3 divisions: men, women, and mixed. We crowned a champion in each. We bowled 3 games using a handicap method of 100% of 1150 (5 bowlers at 230 per bowler). This made the tournament simply pins over average. I then took the net scores and seeded the top 5 teams in each division. The top 5 then faced off in a stepladder final using a 2 game Baker format. One game was bowled on each lane of a pair.
Each team was required to pay a $100 entry fee which was all prize money. One of our houses gave us free lineage. (They recovered that money and quite a bit more in bar business during the Baker stepladder finals. No one left the center. Each tournament looked like a PBA event with all the spectators.) Quite a few of the leagues ran special 50/50’s to foot the entry fee for their champions.
I had the local newspaper as the primary sponsor. Each day the paper would highlight different league champions so that by tournament time all participants had their profiles published along with advertising the many smaller tournament sponsors. They also did a full page spread of the tournament including pictures of the champions. It worked out great. Ultimately I got the sports editor involved in bowling.
I ran this tournament for 5 years until I lost the primary sponsor. Maybe I can get it started up again. I wonder who is the best this year???