The PBA recently instituted a new policy governing the approval of balls for PBA competition. The old rule was the ball had to be USBC approved and available to the membership. The "available to the membership" part use to mean having balls available on the truck for purchase.
The new policy is the ball must be USBC approved and will be cleared for use 10 days after PBA members are able to purchase the ball. This time, the "PBA members are able to purchase the ball" part means through a pro shop or a PBA offer. Since the balls wouldn't be available to buy in a pro shop until October 31st (and thus wouldn't be available to use in PBA competition until November 12th; the 10th is a Saturday, so clearance would happen the following Monday), we put the offer out starting the day the information is released. This means the balls will be available for PBA use starting October 11th.
As far as pricing, we decided to use our MAP policy to determine the price. This decision was made to support the pro shops by not taking away their potential business.
I hope this clears things up, and this will be done with future Brunswick releases as well.
Aaron Koch