This is something I posted on the PBA Forums as a suggestion and I'm just curious if anyone here had thoughts on it.
I watched this weeks show and was a little bored. Don't know what it was, but it certainly lacked in entertainment value even for a bowler like me. Based on that, I have thought up an idea....
Now, how this can relate to the PBA on a larger scale has yet to be determined, but what I take from it is that people and fans of bowling are looking for something different and simply adding names to lane conditions or providing various qualifying formats does not change the product that television viewers see. They see 4 to 7 bowlers (including women) for an hour and a half bowling each other in a head to head battle. The problem with that is it relies heavily on player personalities, close matches and high games. As evident by this weekend’s show, when none of the above occurs, it’s rather dull for the average viewer. This is why I have thought up an interesting 180 degree switch for the PBA to introduce a whole new level of excitement on Sundays.
The bottom line goal of the idea is more player exposure, more excitement packed into the current hour & a half slot and providing clear distinction between average house bowler and Professional.
The great thing about other sports is the ability of the viewer to track their favorite, player, driver, or team on any given Sunday. In NASCAR, you have every team on the track racing for a title. In Golf, you have the top 72 players playing on the final day and though many are finished when the final pairing begins play, the opportunity to see more players, more action, and increased competition is more probable. The potential for miraculous shots increases with more players playing. I use these as an example because the golfers and the drivers are the marketing tools used to promote the game and drive sponsorship. And the PBA should be the same way. You can put Sean Rash on every bowling magazine, but how do you get him on TV? How do you show viewers his “lightning in a bottle†antics on television? Increase the odds by increasing the number of players making the show.
Just think about what would happen if instead of having all those golfers make it to Sunday, you had just the top four after three rounds of qualifying. How many would watch that? Where are you going to get the drama from? What is the possibility of someone shooting a miraculous score and leapfrogging the field? Or a hole in one? How do you market the players when less than 6% get TV time per week?
What if NASCAR took the top four cars from qualifying each week? Who would watch that? What’s the possibility of a big crash or a close finish? How do you get sponsors if your car never gets on TV?
So how do we succeed like golf and NASCAR in the PBA? How do we get 72 players on the TV show? Or how do we get 40 players racing towards the finish line? Well, without disrupting the integrity of the sport with dancing girls and the function of the individual game as the scoring method, we simply change the television finals to include more bowlers and more bowling.
I think if you could put 20 bowlers on the telecast, not only would you immediately increase the marketability of every Exempt PBA pro, and the face time of your sponsors, but you would have a level of excitement for determining the champion that could be unmatched in the sporting world. The method in which you determine the top 20 players for each event should be consistent. It should simply be based on total pins over the course of a certain number of games. Much like NASCAR’s Chase for the Championship at the end of the year, the PBA could have a weekly chase for the championship with a staggered start. Here is the simple version of my dream televised finals.
The championship is televised across 10 lanes. Think of it like the Clash of Champions environment with lots of bowlers, but bigger with the best bowlers in the World. The finals will have all 20 bowlers bowling a 3 game set creating a race to the finish. The finalists would all start at the same time, but would be given different starting values. The top seed would start with 100 pins with each position thereafter have 5 less starting pins. So second qualifier would get 95, 3rd 90 and so on. 20th place would start with 5 pins. This would make it very difficult for 20th to lap the field, but at the same time, what if it did happen. How insane would that be? The top seed would also have the luxury of choosing his finishing lane with everyone else falling in line behind him. The bowlers would bowl one frame on each lane, which also means that each game would consist of two frames per lane. The PBA would have a massive 10 lane scoreboard to track all the scores and adjust position accordingly after each frame so the fans in the bowling center could easily see the scores and keep track of the standings. There would be excitement with every shot and updated scoring every frame would keep viewers clued in to what’s going on. You’d have a greater fan following because the potential that their player makes the show is higher. With the added lane changes we wouldn’t expect high score shootouts, but it would make decision making a premium and add a level of lane play and ball choice that doesn’t ever occur on your average league night. Better yet, the bowling could continue through the commercial breaks and if anything interesting happens while on commercial, we simply do an instant replay.
I don’t see any reason why a guy who loves Walter Ray wouldn’t love to watch him shoot it out with 19 other younger players in a televised final. I don’t see any reason that a 12 year old kid who loves Sean Rash wouldn’t love to watch him get animated as he battles it out with some of the veterans. I don’t see any reason why as a fan of bowling in general, I wouldn’t want to watch 20 of the greatest bowlers in the World fight it out for 30 frames to see who the best is that week. Yes its a shootout and yes it might take away some of the value in bowling great during qualifying, but just because you qualify first in NASCAR, doesn't mean you should automatically finish in the top 4. And just because you're first after three rounds in Golf doesn't mean you can't lose on day four to a guy who was 20th. Think of the story lines. Think of the possibilities. Think! The top 4 & 5 methods have got to go.
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