Strap in everybody, I've got opinions. First we have to look at the relationship of the pro to the amateur to the casual player. Pros in every other sport are very obviously better than amateurs or casual players. It's easy to feel good making par on a golf hole that's 425 yards long, but when somebody on tour makes par on a 500 yard dogleg par 4 with trees and sand and water everywhere, it's obvious to see they're better than you are. This makes it fun to watch professionals in a sport you like or are into, EVERYONE can admire or appreciate their skill, you don't have anybody sitting back going, "Well if Nike sponsored me too, I could destroy those guys."
Bowling used to be an everyman sport. Everybody liked it because the more well off still enjoyed it, and poorer people liked it because a lot of the bowlers of the past were guys just like they were, but it was obvious they were a lot better. Back when guys would average 230 or 240 for the week that was something, because even good league bowlers were down in the 210s. Now people that average 230 in league don't want to watch guys average 230 on tv because they see it happen every week while they're bowling. Because the oil is invisible, it's harder to see the difference between one guy hooking a ball into the pocket and another even if the shots are different. Back a few decades ago there weren't many surprises, because everything was mostly the same. Tour shots were similar to a lot of league shots for one reason or another, maybe even easier, but that just made the pros look even better. There weren't a million ways to drill a ball, and the pros still had more balls than the average guy, but not as ridiculous as it is now.
Now I hear so many people saying, "Well I think I could compete, but I don't have the sponsors and equipment all these guys have." Bowling has become more about equipment, layouts, surfaces, and match ups than the skill of the athlete. In basketball, the ball is the same size for everybody and so is the hoop. Baseball? Golf? Hockey? In bowling though, if you don't walk into a tournament prepared, you could get beaten by somebody a lot less skilled than you because they matched up better or brought the right equipment.
The PBA is definitely doing the right thing making the pros bowl on tougher patterns so that skill has more to do with it than luck, but back in the huge high scoring tv matches, that was some exciting stuff to watch. Nobody wants to watch pros struggle to shoot 200, but that's because par for the course is 230 or 240 now. When nobody shot 240s or 250s very often in league, it was impressive to see the pros do it. Now if they miss once it's almost like, "dang, no 300 this game."
Plus bowling is boring as hell to watch now, everything is so quiet and dead. I liked the shows where they didn't set up the "arena," where everybody cheered a lot more and where people appeared to be having fun. Now the bowlers are disappointed, dejected, and throwing fits more often than not. I don't want to watch guys pout for two solid hours. Then you have a lot of fake, gimmicky high tacky corny stuff going on constantly. People trying to inject excitement into places it doesn't normally come in, goofy commentator or personality names like Mike J Laneside and Jackie Bowling (who the hell is she anyway but a bleach blonde chick somebody found to sit in the audience and look way too high maintenance?). PBA coverage is painfully sad, it all looks and sounds like a jr high production. Between Randy trying to make sure everybody knows just how much smarter he is than they are, Dave Ryan or Rob Stone or whoever being generally clueless, putting shows on CBS Sports, which nobody has, and then taking forever to upload stuff to Xtra Frame, it's all just a huge frustrating mess.
