1st pba telecast sunday 12/14 -- will you be watching?

[bubba809]

The Texas Tornado

[fortheloveofbowling]

yes, who is your favorite player and Japanese player?

Manae kameshima and Miku Urano have some talent.

[fortheloveofbowling]

Stepladder finals getting ready to start at the pba tournament in japan. Should be fun. Sigh up for Xtra Frame if you don't have it, well worth the money.

1) Fagan
2) Barnes
3) Johnson
4) Williams
5) Maldanado

[fortheloveofbowling]

Stepladder finals getting ready to start at the pba tournament in japan. Should be fun. Sigh up for Xtra Frame if you don't have it, well worth the money.

1) Fagan
2) Barnes
3) Johnson
4) Williams
5) Maldanado

In case anyone has xtra frame and has not watched it i won't say who won. It was a great show though and events held here in the states should take some notes in regards to telecast production.

[fortheloveofbowling]

So did anyone watch the finals of the recent tournament in japan on xtra frame?

[vdubtx]

Anybody catch the show yesterday?

New scoring format introduced which makes it interesting I guess. Was funny with the format that there was not much excitement from the bowlers.
Only outburst of excitement I really saw was Kelly Kulick when she left a ringing 10 and thought she won only to have to shoot at the spare.

[bubba809]

Yes, but the Rash/Belmonte match was a big letdown. Was really hoping for another "water bottle" incident.

[Aslan]

I finally got caught up today.

I fell asleep watching the Mallott/Fagan match of the championship so I got caught up on that. Then I watched the WBT finals.

I have noticed a few negatives thus far early on in the season.

1) The TV production has been a near disaster. Pressler's bimbo interviews. The bumbling surrounding the kids bowling the pros. The event getting cut short by some coverages when it ran over. The loss of coverage of live action when they cut away, sometimes to nothing, or to a commercial or some other spot. It's as if ESPN doesn't want to do the boradcast and sent their rookie team as a training exercise.

2) The new WBT scoring format is not only "bad", it's a real insult to the sport. You could tell none of the bowlers liked it even though they wouldn't say so directly. The new scoring format is not something that will enhance the sport or it's watchability; it'll change the entire sport as we know it. During that entire broadcast, we saw a total of 1-2 spares shot at. That alone will make spare shooting a non-factor or an afterthought. IF this is change is made…spares will have went from essential, to somewhat necessary, to a minor annoyance. Coaches will teach strikability and worst case how to only leave 1 pin. Why teach anything else? Odds are, you'll never need to shoot spares.

3) To add a horrible cherry on top of this whole thing…and to further my belief that they assigned a young, rookie production staff to the bowling coverage…someone thought it would be a good idea to have FLAVOR FLAV (of all people) go on the telecast and actually throw a shot. I don't even want to imagine the looks on the faces of the > 35 year old league blue collar bowlers as they watched a notorious idiot make a fool of himself on bowling's biggest stage. And they thought this would get bowlers interested in this weekend's celebrity bowling event? If Chris Hardwick wasn't bowling…I would have no interest in watching it. And I only have interest in watching him because of his late father.

I don't know who is making decisions at ESPN or the PBA…but at this point it appears to be producers that would be more comfortable on the Bravo network working on some "Housewives of X County".

[Aslan]

Yes, but the Rash/Belmonte match was a big letdown. Was really hoping for another "water bottle" incident.

That was my favorite part.

Not only did Belmo and his weird case of pink eye get obliterated…but then cocky Sean Rash lost to the elder statesman Mika.

[Aslan]

Well, I stopped watching once Chris Barnes/Hardwick lost to Russell and whoever that other clown was.

The two negatives I noticed from this telecast:

1) The audience…some were there to "celebrity watch"…but of the ones that were PBA/bowling fans that were there…they did not look entertained by the high school-esque antics/atmosphere. Yet another attempt by the PBA/Bowlmor to take a historic game loved my 10s of millions and make it into an "X-Game". I have a feeling the PBA owners would rather destroy bowling and get more of the 25-year old demographic to watch…then to have 10s of millions of bowling fans.

2) As noted above…it was very akward when the Russel pair tried to make noise as Barnes was about to release and he had to stop and re-set. I think Chris tried to downplay it as best he could…but thats an example where hardcore bowling fans saw that one way and casual celebrity watchers saw it entirely differently. The bowlers saw that and thought, "come on, where's the class?" And the celebrity watchers saw that and thought, "whats up HIS (Barnes) butt??!"

It's just nonsense for charity…so who cares really. But I can't believe Team Russell squeeked out that win despite having that one talentless player. Replay that match 10 times and it's a different outcome 9 out of 10 times. IMO