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Thread: How to Save the PBA Tour

  1. #21
    Bowling God Aslan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike White View Post
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    If that wasn't so true...I'd tell you to go **** yourself. Well played.

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    I like his response to the Rash water bottle incident "If i wanted to put him off with a water bottle I would have thrown it at his head so nah, i did not do it on purpose"
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  2. #22
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    Default Can you really save the PBA?

    In regards to saving the PBA / growing the PBA I really don't know if there is much that can actually be done. I know a few ideas were brought up, but I just don't know if this will actually work out...

    Youth Bowling: While I agree that there needs to be more of a focus on younger bowlers I just don't see how it can actually be done. In regards to elementary age kids there are a few issues; First, with this age group you are essentially competing with youth basketball, football, little league, swimming, and a wide variety of other activities for two days worth of time. Week days are not set up to have any of these activities for kids with their school schedules and parent's work schedules. The other issue with week days is that a lot of these other activities do not require transportation to participate; basketball, baseball, and even football can be played right at the school while bowling would require transportation to be set up. In middle and high schools you have a high volume of places, such as Arizona where I'm from, where there isn't bowling teams at school and I don't see money being spent to start these programs when districts are looking to cut spending.

    Television: I believe that the PBA is very fortunate to still be on ESPN and it is so far away from getting to ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX that I don't think that should be the discussion. Also with the networks you have the following things to compete with; ABC - NBA and College Football, NBC - Sunday Night Football, NHL Contract and Notre Dame, FOX - MLB Contract and NFL Contract, CBS - PGA Tour and NFL Contract. Week nights are not an option because these networks would want to focus on their series. Bowling is too far of a repitition program to move the needle for the common television watcher. Also, with the March Madness format, if you assume each match to take 15 minutes of television time you are looking at over 45 - 22 minute programs (when you factor in commercials) or 10 - 2 hour programs for a single tournament to show the results (this adds to the endorsement risk I explain below because the people being endorsed have more of a chance to not get exposure). I don't know if people are going to follow this program for the "stories", reality television is dime a dozen and plenty of programs fail each year; also what happens when this idea fails and ESPN finds out that there is more of a market for another sport.

    Tour: I don't think you can get rid of the tour for a more widespread tournament set-up. I agree that you may want to add an additional USBC Masters type tournament but not to replace the PBA tour. The modification of having centers choose two bowlers will also kill your premium leagues due to good bowlers spreading around to get in this tournament; Two years ago one of our premium leagues had Andrew Cain (USBC President), Josh Blanchard (PBA Pro), Brett Wolfe (Former Masters Champion), and Chris Klerk all on the same team - this does not include Michael Haugen Jr. (PBA Pro), Ben Laughlin (Made telecast this year), and other Regional champions...these elite leagues would be more difficult to create under this system.

    Endorsements: With the larger tournament you will not get better endorsements, you may create a system of many smaller endorsements that will actually squeeze out your top pros. Companies will be much less likely to pay significant money to pros with the risk of a Tom Daugherty shooting 100 and not making it past the first round - wasting a fair chunk of change.

    The Top Heavy Tournament: The 100,000 player format for a top heavy tournament is anything but free. You may only look at an entry fee being free, but if you have multiple days/weeks of bowling you must factor in travel, hotel, food, wages missed out on, etc. This format would be far from free and could actually be a huge risk for the person who bubbles in this tournament.

    A side note: Let's not bash on Jason Belmonte's style as being an inferior form of bowling...to be that accurate while throwing two handed is amazing. If you don't think he is accurate just look at this spare shooting.

    Sorry for the long post and I hope Aslan doesn't think I was attacking his post, it was a good structure so I used it.

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    And I will be the first to admit, I don't have any great ideas on what can be done to build up the PBA. There are simply a lot of road blocks and difficulties to be found.

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    With respect, you're wrong. There's only one obstacle: Money. Pro sports thrive because they're backed by money and thus they generate money. Do you have any idea how much one 30-second commercial spot costs during the Super Bowl? Do you have any idea how much the average NBA player makes? Football, baseball and basketball are popular and sustainable because they have a large draw of fans who ... (wait for it!) ... spend money, on tickets, beer, memorabilia, jackets, shirts, and who buy the cars that sponsor the "Chevrolet Player of the Game." Those sports are popular because they generate excitement and an opportunity to cheer. Golf is popular, because golf is expensive to play; rich people play golf, and they get lots of high-profile, snob-appeal sponsors. What does bowling have? "The Odor-Eaters Open," for pete's sake! And it's quiet and cerebral -- like golf, but without the money-generating sponsors.

    I also agree with the poster who mentioned getting the sport into the schools. Soccer wasn't popular until it came into the schools. If you get the kids to play, the moms and dads will get into the game, too. Schools have swim teams and golf teams. Why not bowling teams?

    There also needs to be better exposure and marketing of the personalities. Personally, I think Norm Duke is more appealing and better looking (and easier to market) than Richard Petty. Pete Weber may try to act like a bad boy, but he's a saint compared to some of these thugs that play pro basketball. Why do they get the marketing exposure? Why do more people know the name Michael Jordan than Michael Haugen? Marketing. Jordan has shoes and T-shirts. What's Haugen got? Not even milk.

    If the PBA could convince big brands to sponsor the sport, it would draw big money, and more people into the sphere of exposure.

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    Quote Originally Posted by rv driver View Post
    With respect, you're wrong. There's only one obstacle: Money. Pro sports thrive because they're backed by money and thus they generate money. Do you have any idea how much one 30-second commercial spot costs during the Super Bowl? Do you have any idea how much the average NBA player makes? Football, baseball and basketball are popular and sustainable because they have a large draw of fans who ... (wait for it!) ... spend money, on tickets, beer, memorabilia, jackets, shirts, and who buy the cars that sponsor the "Chevrolet Player of the Game." Those sports are popular because they generate excitement and an opportunity to cheer. Golf is popular, because golf is expensive to play; rich people play golf, and they get lots of high-profile, snob-appeal sponsors. What does bowling have? "The Odor-Eaters Open," for pete's sake! And it's quiet and cerebral -- like golf, but without the money-generating sponsors.

    I also agree with the poster who mentioned getting the sport into the schools. Soccer wasn't popular until it came into the schools. If you get the kids to play, the moms and dads will get into the game, too. Schools have swim teams and golf teams. Why not bowling teams?

    There also needs to be better exposure and marketing of the personalities. Personally, I think Norm Duke is more appealing and better looking (and easier to market) than Richard Petty. Pete Weber may try to act like a bad boy, but he's a saint compared to some of these thugs that play pro basketball. Why do they get the marketing exposure? Why do more people know the name Michael Jordan than Michael Haugen? Marketing. Jordan has shoes and T-shirts. What's Haugen got? Not even milk.

    If the PBA could convince big brands to sponsor the sport, it would draw big money, and more people into the sphere of exposure.
    I agree with most of this except why would you compare Michael Haugen to Michael Jordan. While Haugen is one of my favorites and does have one major title among his 3 tour wins, he has never to my knowledge been in the running for player of the year. Jordan was considered the best player in the NBA for several seasons before his team won a title and I don't think that Nike and Wheaties had any thing to with that. Better bowler for this comparison would be Chris Barnes, Parker Bohn, Walter Ray Williams or Pete Weber.
    John

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    High Roller rv driver's Avatar
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    Simply because of the name "Michael." But I do see your point -- and I agree with you. However, my point still stands: Even Barnes, Bohn, Williams and Weber put together aren't as well known as Jordan, or Manning, or Elway, or Magic alone. Heck, even Anthony (the quintessential bowling "star" of his day and the standard for all bowling giants today) wasn't as well known as many of the "lesser" players like Laimbeer or Ainge. Why? Not as much exposure. Why? Not as much money involved in the Earl Anthony machine as there was in the Pistons and Celtics machines.

  7. #27

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    Simple: make them all bowl to death metal. Maybe have GWAR performing live where the stadium seating normally is.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mudpuppy View Post
    Simple: make them all bowl to death metal. Maybe have GWAR performing live where the stadium seating normally is.
    I'm thinking full-contact bowling...

  9. #29
    Bowling God Aslan's Avatar
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    Well...we have 2 of the "worst" ideas...from people that seem to have forgotten TV history.

    Two worst TV ideas in the last 70 years:

    1) THe XFL.
    2) "Cop Rock".

    Trust me....make it a reality format...with a March Madness type tournament at the end of the season...you will get your ratings back and be on network television in no time. I'd do it myself...buy the PBA, work with the folks out here in Hollywood to get it produced and on the air...I just need to win a significant sum of money in the Powerball to make that happen.

  10. #30
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    Default PBA difficulty

    This isn't a simple of an answer as money being the only obstacle. While we could say that money is the final issue that is the easiest to point to, you have to build up exposure for the game before you can get more money. Looking at the 2006-2010 Tournament of Champions the ratings are just not that good (not that this is new news).

    http://blog.timesunion.com/bowling/m...elevision/119/


    As it was mentioned if a big brand could be convinced to be a sponsor it would help, but there isn't the return necessary for a larger sponsor to do this. The average cost of a commercial on some of the major networks is as follows (all 30 seconds):

    ESPN: $19,301
    FOX: $200,008
    ABC/CBS: $94,000
    NBC: $76,211

    Taking the average number of viewers for the 2006-2010 stretch 877,000 and the Average commercial spot for ESPN you get $0.02 per viewer. You can adjust this down per viewer by saying that the commercial cost is lower on Sunday afternoon, but then adjust it up for the % of people watching this on DVR and fast forwarding for commercials. 19.8 million viewers were the average for football ( http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com...gs-2011/12798/ ), which would turn out to be a $396,000 commercial for the same $0.02 per viewer rate. Essentially if a larger sponsor thought that the PBA was appealing they would buy up a lot of the available spots on ESPN because of cost effectiveness. Thus you are stuck with in a circle of we need more money to become more popular, but we need a higher popularity level to get more money.

    Looking at the common answer for building up the game, getting more kids to start up bowling, you can see many of the same difficulties. The biggest difficulty is getting kids interested in bowling over other sports and activities. Bowling is at a great disadvantage to many of the other sports (football, baseball, basketball, golf, etc.) because of exposure on television. During baseball season and basketball season you can turn the television on almost every day and watch a game, football is an activity that entire families will watch together (which is on the same day as many bowling events), etc. The second disadvantage is the ease of play for basketball, football, baseball...grab a ball and walk to the park or play in the front yard. Kids are not dependent on adults to take them to a specific location as they are in bowling. Lastly, there are many schools and locations that do not have bowling teams; since these programs are not established it would be difficult to get schools to take them on; too many districts are trying to find new and creative ways to cut expense at this time, I don't think they would be as open to adding new programs and expense.

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