BallReviews
General Category => PBA => Topic started by: thewhiz on December 10, 2016, 03:48:04 PM
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How do the not so good pros survive on tour. The guys who never win. Where does their money Come from for expenses and entry fees. Do the top guys get a salary from the ball companies? Does a percentage of what they win go to anyone?
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When watching the Pros on Xtra Frame, I have also wondered about who pays them enough to be able to bowl for a living.
Do they have wealthy parents or a sponsor backing them. As an example one fairly new Pro I am aware of, dropped out of college to do the Tour. His father runs a pro shop. How much money running a pro shop can be available to support him on Tour. He must be bowling a lot of side action bowling while on the Tour.
I don't personally know, but I hear the ball company contracts pay next to nothing unless you are winning or are an established player like WRW, Jr., Parker, PDW, etc.
For you in the know........enlighten us. Thanks.
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Backing from family, friends, wives or girlfriends. It's a shit living for the fringe players.
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McDonalds dollar menu........ :P
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Backers, backers, backers. I know at least 4 National tour guys who have millionaires pulling strings behind closed doors.
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It's not a glamorous life at all and there are a lot ex-wives and ex-girlfriends with some lean Bank accounts supporting this pipe dream.
Hell, wasn't Patrick Allen living in his car at one point? When he was winning.
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Devaney was living in his truck with a wife and kids at home.
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even walter ray lived in an RV when back in the day when the tour was a tour and he was still winning. he brought his wife with him and had a small place in florida in the off season
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Have you ever seen Walters RV from in the day? That thing had everything. So you can't throw Walter in on the discussion. And his home in Florida was very nice. They did a documentary on it, League of Ordinary Gentlemen and he was there. They had to live on tour going week to week from stop to stop so an RV was practical back then. I highly doubt he still has one unless for personal vacations.
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thats true. im sure it was still cheaper than staying in hotels every week though
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http://www.espn.com/espn/magazine/archives/news/story?page=magazine-20040329-article35
Interesting article
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Good read. Thanks for sharing.
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Even in the Tour's heyday, when it actually was a Tour, there were very few players truly making their living with bowling alone. That's one of the reasons why the Tour is what it is now. The Tour couldn't afford to travel from city to city every week doing live shows, and they players couldn't afford to be there to participate even if they could. That's why you have things like the World Series of Bowling now. This way, guys and girls can spend a week and a half in Reno all at once and then work other jobs the rest of the year to actually put food on the table.
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A follow up article on Patrick Allen would be something else in 2016. Things weren't going too well for a minute shortly after this article. He's back throwing it well and is a Roto Grip staffer I believe. In the past few years, the tour has seen a changing of the guard. You need youth, deep backing, & revrate to make a good living as a professional bowler in today's era.
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equipment for "staffers" is comped, but still have drilling fees
staff salaries are not that much at all
i think if memory serves correct the rv walter had was comped from the go rv platform? i can not remember that far back
ask the kids who compete now out there how it really is, eye opening would be a good phrase
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http://www.espn.com/espn/magazine/archives/news/story?page=magazine-20040329-article35
Interesting article
The feeling you get after reading this is even worse than I suspected and I Knew most of this already .....
It can be very painful to follow your dream, in so many ways.
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I read that article a few years back and the thing that always sticks in my head is Jason couch winning the TOC three years in a row and turning around and giving it all back at the Mohegan sun gambling. PA is a right, a lot of these guys are bad with money.
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I'd never heard about that with Couch, but it doesn't surprise me. I think that many bowlers are gamblers by nature. We start out getting in pots and/or bowling pot games, and it can just keep going from there. Plus, when those guys are/were on the road, there is plenty of down time, and strip clubs, bars, and casinos are very alluring ways to kill time.
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I'm cheap as f*ck. I don't do pots, brackets etc the entry fee is enough, but I've liked bowling for bowling, not as an income stream. I can see why guys smash ball returns etc, they put their rent money up for brackets and pots and get RAMBO'D.
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I read that article a few years back and the thing that always sticks in my head is Jason couch winning the TOC three years in a row and turning around and giving it all back at the Mohegan sun gambling. PA is a right, a lot of these guys are bad with money.
Well, like with many different careers, and including sports, while it is an (easy) way to make money, it doesn't teach you how to KEEP money. You have to have and learn the wealth thinking to be able to keep the money that you have, use it responsibly, and find that way to have that money make you money passively while you are also actively making more.
In short, you don't want to fall victim to the lottery syndrome: where someone wins big, and spends even bigger that they are worse off than where they were when they started.
BL.
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I read that article a few years back and the thing that always sticks in my head is Jason couch winning the TOC three years in a row and turning around and giving it all back at the Mohegan sun gambling. PA is a right, a lot of these guys are bad with money.
Well, like with many different careers, and including sports, while it is an (easy) way to make money, it doesn't teach you how to KEEP money. You have to have and learn the wealth thinking to be able to keep the money that you have, use it responsibly, and find that way to have that money make you money passively while you are also actively making more.
In short, you don't want to fall victim to the lottery syndrome: where someone wins big, and spends even bigger that they are worse off than where they were when they started.
BL.
For the Econ majors out there, lifestyle inflation, make more: spend more.
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I'm cheap as f*ck. I don't do pots, brackets etc the entry fee is enough, but I've liked bowling for bowling, not as an income stream. I can see why guys smash ball returns etc, they put their rent money up for brackets and pots and get RAMBO'D.
That's definitely reason to megafry.
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There's a tour?
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How do the not so good pros survive on tour. The guys who never win. Where does their money Come from for expenses and entry fees. Do the top guys get a salary from the ball companies? Does a percentage of what they win go to anyone?
When watching the Pros on Xtra Frame, I have also wondered about who pays them enough to be able to bowl for a living.
Do they have wealthy parents or a sponsor backing them. As an example one fairly new Pro I am aware of, dropped out of college to do the Tour. His father runs a pro shop. How much money running a pro shop can be available to support him on Tour. He must be bowling a lot of side action bowling while on the Tour.
I don't personally know, but I hear the ball company contracts pay next to nothing unless you are winning or are an established player like WRW, Jr., Parker, PDW, etc.
For you in the know........enlighten us. Thanks.
Kris?
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I agree to a greater extent that bowlers are gamblers by nature. And it's true that at best most of us would be happy to say that we've broke even.
Back in my alley rat days, I remember the folks I went up against, including myself, would try parlaying whatever we did at the bowling alley the night before and be there at the racetrack the following afternoon for the daily double and pick six. If we were lucky enough, and I emphasize IF we were lucky enough, not to lose our shirts and asses at the track, we'd try recouping our piddly bankroll(s) back at the bowling alley later that evening.
Pot games? Humph, one place that I fondly remember whose property is now a freeway off ramp allowed pot games seven days a week. Of course, Friday night was the big night.
What was sobering was that a few of the guys who were world beaters from my two-bit pot games scene couldn't hit the broad side of the ocean once they tried going out on tour. I mean, these guys were so good among us all you had to do was announce that they're in the house and damn near half of the guys would pack up and go home. But these same guys couldn't bowl their way out of the PTQs.
Fast forwarding back to the 21st century, to say you've gone out on tour, whether national or regional, is an endeavor you simply have to say you've done it or you'll always question whether you were good enough (or not) to have competed. I think that's the nature of a truly competitive bowler.
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What surprises me (and saddens me a little) are all of the remarkably talented guys and gals who have the talent but choose not to go out on Tour because there simply isn't enough money there to make it worth the risk. When I worked in Texas, I worked alongside guys like Derek Eoff and Bryan O'Keefe. These guys are insanely talented, yet neither of them have ever really made a go of the Tour on a full-time basis. I'm envious as all get out because if I had 1/2 of their talent, I'd love to give it a shot; however, they're wise enough to realize that it isn't worth it in the long run these days because the money just isn't there. It's a sad reality.
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What surprises me (and saddens me a little) are all of the remarkably talented guys and gals who have the talent but choose not to go out on Tour because there simply isn't enough money there to make it worth the risk. When I worked in Texas, I worked alongside guys like Derek Eoff and Bryan O'Keefe. These guys are insanely talented, yet neither of them have ever really made a go of the Tour on a full-time basis. I'm envious as all get out because if I had 1/2 of their talent, I'd love to give it a shot; however, they're wise enough to realize that it isn't worth it in the long run these days because the money just isn't there. It's a sad reality.
It goes more than just that. There was the time when there were all of these remarkably talented guys and gals who had the talent but chose not to go out on the Tour because there was more money to make in the amateur tournaments than there was on the tour. Guys like Patrick Allen, Pat Healey, Jr., Paul Renteria, and many others chose not to go out on the tour because in tournaments like the Hi-Roller, the Mini and International Eliminator tournaments, and the True Amateur Challenge, the top prize in some of those tournaments was the amount they advertised, in addition to the breakdown of the payouts when it got to match play.
It was when either those tournament organizers changed the rules that you saw those guys transition over to the PBA tour.. some of them then saw how it was starting to go downhill, then shifted their view overseas.
So when you see all these bowlers head to the Japan Cup, and you see the payout that is occurring there, it really makes you wonder, because while people here in the US think that bowling is a dying sport, it is thriving everywhere else in the world.
BL.
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BL you are correct. Chris Barnes when he was in the amateur ranks was carving out a very good living. He has done extremely good as a PBA Tour professional, but that is not the norm for most PBA pro players. Very sad, but I try to keep the faith that prize funds/cashes will continue to improve to allow these great players a chance to continue to bowl on tour.
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In any era, there has only been a small number in relation to all the bowlers out on tour who have made a decent living at it. These days, that number just happens to be even smaller along with the fewer opportunities that are available.
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If the potential ROI was really worth taking a shot, the talent pool would open up like you wouldn't believe. Too much risk, not enough reward.
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You are correct. Mike Fagan as great as he is decided getting his (I believe) Master's in Finance would provide a more lucrative living going forward than the Tour(full-time).
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Lots of good responses. Only thing I can really add is that it wasnt much better 40 years ago. I went to my first nationals in 1975. A team mate told me beforehand that I would be surprised at how many good bowlers werent on tour and how many mediocre bowlers were. Many of the tour regulars back the were out simply because they had better sponsors than job prospects back home.
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The PBA is on life-support. There is no money in professional bowling. I'll say this, there are some very talented bowlers out there, but if my son said, "Dad, I want to become a professional bowler". I'd do everything I could to talk him out of it.