PBA Bear Open, holy crap is that a crappy oil pattern.

Link for those needing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm4XNOxfk20&list=PL_tiPkmB-sS5uEzWJyG5fheYOXOsxVqIS

Hard condition.... Great matches!

It's been great to see some new faces this summer on the shows.  I'm also glad to see Dan MacLelland finally win some matches on tv.  It's only a matter of time before he gets his first title.

I couldn't be happier for Losch. He absolutely deserved a win, and it is good to see that he finally did it.

But that also starts a bit of a trend for me. For years, we've all had our favourites on the tour, and more times than not, they've been the popular stars: Duke, Williams, Weber, Anthony, Roth, Bohn, Barnes, Belmo, etc..

But personally, over the past 20 or so years, I've been rooting more for the underdogs, or the ones that truly persevere. Jurek leapfrogged a bunch of people on my favourites list, followed by Losch, Bryon Smith, etc. The guys that have had that drought from when they started to when they won, or that mammoth winless streak between titles, but never give up. Just them and their perseverance makes you like them more.

The greats are always the greats.. but ones that struggle and persevere, they are where the stories and the life lessons come from.

BL.

I view the shows through links provided by BR members. I find nothing wrong with Randy and I love the shows .. going back to the old format was a great decision! I was hoping the new setup would increase the winners prize fund but it looks like that's NOT happening!

Maybe I just let him get to me this broadcast.

The prize fund is borderline embarrassing.

What do you expect with a down economy? Not every sport is rolling in the money like Basketball, Baseball, or Football. And when you have bowling centers catering more to the kids that only want to come in on a Friday night and Cosmic bowl, the sport's popularity is going to fade. Add on to the fact that those same kids can't seem to get off their arses and away from Facebook for 5 seconds let alone the time to bowl 3 games, and it all trickles up. Less popularity = less sponsorship = less prize fund.

This problem started a long time ago, and helped contribute to the downfall of the PWBA, and still to this day they have not found a solution for it.

BL.

Until bowling centers in general start doing something to build the sport they are going to remain sad. Poor management is killing the sport more than any single thing.

Randy Pedersen is annoying as hell. Its funny for a week or so, but his lame ass attempt s at being funny wear on you quick.

Bowling's model for success never was there at a professional level.  Golf was a rich mans pastime that morphed into an activity for the middle class, bringing with it interest from CEO's of large companies with big advertising budgets for tv.   In the 60's and 70's more people watched bowling on tv than golf or NBA basketball, but the big companies weren't interested in targeting the bowling crowd with their ad money

Bowling was a blue collar activity that never had the respect of the so called upper class during the period when it could have benefited from more tv sponsorship.     

Very true. But to add onto that, look at the roots of where bowling started: more industrialized cities and states, like Milwaukee, places in New Jersey, New York, etc.

Golf? required wide open spaces and the money to manicure and maintain it. That definitely geared itself towards the upper class and more white collar positions.

But until both management raises its bar on taking care of the sport, as well as the media giving it more attention (which it won't until someone busts through to the masses, and to be honest, Belmo and Osku are paling in comparison to Woods or LeBron), we're going to continue to be in this slump.

Perhaps we need to take a page out of Japan's playbook, as popularity there has skyrocketed.

BL.