FYI, this post is gonna be about 1400 words. Everyone's got an opinion, yea, but then again, there's a lot to cover in this situation. Also, Tony, can you add the hyperlink option for sites and not just pics/videos? Or did I miss something?
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So, it came to pass that Jeff Richgels got some quotes from BPAA Tourney Director John Losito about not being able to have the US Open tournaments in 2015, this coming on the heels of the tournaments not making a appearance in 2014, this season.
The blogs, found here (http://11thframe.com/news/article/6625), detail the issues that Bowling has had the last, lets face it, two plus decades. That is, that it takes a lot of money to put Bowling on TV, and ratings and return of investment has been non-existent when it comes to putting these tourneys on.
Now, to me, I’ve seen at least four (there are probably way more) that have come on social media and proclaimed that they are going to help “save the US Open” and such. They have come from Sean Rash, Jason Belmonte and a few others that I can’t remember seeing this moment. But, to summarize, there are folks who are pissed off and want someone, anyone (fans, the PBA Tour, BPAA themselves) to do something to trade this travesty.
Well, while I admire the fire all of a sudden from these folks, I have to sit there and wonder many things about this whole fiasco that has transpired. Here are the things that come to mind right away, and in no true order:
- If the BPAA really didn’t want this to happen, why did Losito talk to Riggs about this instead of a press release? I mean, if this is really the end all to be all of the talk, why is it in a blog? And that’s no slight to Jeff or John. However, to me at least, it doesn’t feel like a “official” type of thing. More so, it rather comes off as a message from Losito and the BPAA saying this is the case, and if folks can’t/won’t step up in some way, you can forget about it.
- What people seem to forget is that the Women’s All-Star (what the US Open was called before) and the Senior Women’s US Open is actually happening this year. Here’s the page on the BPAA website where you can register and such for these tourneys (http://bpaa.com/tournaments.asp). Granted, there’s no Men’s tourney for regular bowlers, but there is a Sr. US Open still that is in the PBA50 schedule. That is a lot of US Open type of tourneys for nothing happening.
- Are there folks to blame and ask why they aren’t doing it? For sure. First off is the BPAA itself. I guess it’s fair to ask that, but people tend to realize that the first thing the BPAA is supposed to do is to serve the Bowling center proprietors that pay them to be members and get things like discounts to Sysco, Pepsi, and such. I’ll even listen that the money BPAA is spending on the GoBowling 400 and the GoBowling car could cover the next 5 US Open’s for both men, women, and both senior sets. However, realize that on average, there are 75 million people watching a NASCAR event on average, versus one million watching the PBA on ESPN. 75 million people (that’s 1 in 3 Americans, by the way) that will see the GoBowling website, possibly log on and visit a Bowling center for the first time. You’re trying to win those 75 million over, versus the 1 million you’ve already won over. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be Bowling on TV. However, it’s really not even close in term of viewership.
- I appreciate the effort all of a sudden in getting these tournaments going from guys like Rash and Belmo. I also know that Sean (Brunswick camps) and Belmo (IAB) have done a lot to get people to bowl and bowl correctly. But to then, I ask, where is everyone else? I saw Mike Fagan make a post about how a Mitsubishi Heating & AC commercial slammed Bowling (https://www.facebook.com/FaganBowling/posts/10152135287533207?stream_ref=10). I’m going to disagree on that, considering that it’s a play on how to bowl. Lets face it, if you really want to slam Bowling at it’s core, there should be guys with dirty ass button down shirts with guts busting out, swigging beers and inhaling cigarettes like their life depended on it. That would be more offensive, because (to me at least) you’re hitting the reasons you’re not going in, alcohol abuse, dirty air, overweight donks who swear and such.
- To ask if the USBC or the PBA could save this tournament, you have to remember a few things. When it comes to the USBC, they are folks who have people like Jerry Anderson of the Dallas USBC blow a gasket when your one-time sanction fee would go up one whole US dollar. They are many folks who get pissed and butthurt over one-time 300 rings. Do you think that, if the US Open lost money with the USBC running it (which is probable, lets be honest for anyone running it), that you’ll ever hear the end of it about “wasting the money of the Bowlers”? Come on. PBA wise, there’s a reason they gave it back to the BPAA a few years ago. They are grinding for people to show up to suburbia Oklahoma City and Las Vegas here in a few months.
- The argument of spending $200k to televise the tournament is a valid one. To me, the internet is much friendlier right now than giving ESPN/Winnacom a boat of money to show me Terrell Owens with a bunch of PBA Pros in a skill shot competition that you’re just using to fill the 30 extra minutes. Mike Flanagan of InsideBowling just ran his $10k to win Open in StL this weekend, and his tourney and running of the webcast and such were straight up money. XtraFrame has been a hit at a nominal cost, and the USBC wrecks it with their webstreams of Open, College, Women’s Open and other tourneys. So, then again, why is it that damn important to get on ESPN and fight with things like the NFL, NBA, College Basketball and such? Are there people that just refuse to open a computer or fire up a tablet to watch a bowling tournament? Hell, I yell TYBG every Saturday for the laptop and iPad that I have so that I can stream up to 7 College Football games and such to myself digitally every Saturday. Nevermind that’s what I do, but I’d probably use it at the same way if I wasn’t going to watch Nebraska or their opponents or the sport in general. $200k is roughly, what, 40% of your costs to run the tourney? I know Flanagan had a great little scenario in a comment on a Facebook post about this. You don’t need the TV, you just need to advertise it.
Now, I do realize that in the whole 1200’ish words I’ve put up above, I don’t really have a solid way to fix it all and have a tourney. But, it’s beyond fair to say there are suggestions that, when all pieced together, can give the tournament a little bit of a fairer chance to happen. It may certainly not, though, and for that there’s a lot of fingerpointing. I still think that blog post that started it all was to open eyes and not bury a grave. There’s only so much folks can do before everyone has to pitch into the garden and reap the harvest. When you have only a few folks planting for everyone and the rain dries up the crop, however, it seems like everyone has great ideas for getting food on the table. Right now, there’s not a lot of food on the table for the US Open Bowling Tournaments. That has to change.
---------------------------------------
So, it came to pass that Jeff Richgels got some quotes from BPAA Tourney Director John Losito about not being able to have the US Open tournaments in 2015, this coming on the heels of the tournaments not making a appearance in 2014, this season.
The blogs, found here (http://11thframe.com/news/article/6625), detail the issues that Bowling has had the last, lets face it, two plus decades. That is, that it takes a lot of money to put Bowling on TV, and ratings and return of investment has been non-existent when it comes to putting these tourneys on.
Now, to me, I’ve seen at least four (there are probably way more) that have come on social media and proclaimed that they are going to help “save the US Open” and such. They have come from Sean Rash, Jason Belmonte and a few others that I can’t remember seeing this moment. But, to summarize, there are folks who are pissed off and want someone, anyone (fans, the PBA Tour, BPAA themselves) to do something to trade this travesty.
Well, while I admire the fire all of a sudden from these folks, I have to sit there and wonder many things about this whole fiasco that has transpired. Here are the things that come to mind right away, and in no true order:
- If the BPAA really didn’t want this to happen, why did Losito talk to Riggs about this instead of a press release? I mean, if this is really the end all to be all of the talk, why is it in a blog? And that’s no slight to Jeff or John. However, to me at least, it doesn’t feel like a “official” type of thing. More so, it rather comes off as a message from Losito and the BPAA saying this is the case, and if folks can’t/won’t step up in some way, you can forget about it.
- What people seem to forget is that the Women’s All-Star (what the US Open was called before) and the Senior Women’s US Open is actually happening this year. Here’s the page on the BPAA website where you can register and such for these tourneys (http://bpaa.com/tournaments.asp). Granted, there’s no Men’s tourney for regular bowlers, but there is a Sr. US Open still that is in the PBA50 schedule. That is a lot of US Open type of tourneys for nothing happening.
- Are there folks to blame and ask why they aren’t doing it? For sure. First off is the BPAA itself. I guess it’s fair to ask that, but people tend to realize that the first thing the BPAA is supposed to do is to serve the Bowling center proprietors that pay them to be members and get things like discounts to Sysco, Pepsi, and such. I’ll even listen that the money BPAA is spending on the GoBowling 400 and the GoBowling car could cover the next 5 US Open’s for both men, women, and both senior sets. However, realize that on average, there are 75 million people watching a NASCAR event on average, versus one million watching the PBA on ESPN. 75 million people (that’s 1 in 3 Americans, by the way) that will see the GoBowling website, possibly log on and visit a Bowling center for the first time. You’re trying to win those 75 million over, versus the 1 million you’ve already won over. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be Bowling on TV. However, it’s really not even close in term of viewership.
- I appreciate the effort all of a sudden in getting these tournaments going from guys like Rash and Belmo. I also know that Sean (Brunswick camps) and Belmo (IAB) have done a lot to get people to bowl and bowl correctly. But to then, I ask, where is everyone else? I saw Mike Fagan make a post about how a Mitsubishi Heating & AC commercial slammed Bowling (https://www.facebook.com/FaganBowling/posts/10152135287533207?stream_ref=10). I’m going to disagree on that, considering that it’s a play on how to bowl. Lets face it, if you really want to slam Bowling at it’s core, there should be guys with dirty ass button down shirts with guts busting out, swigging beers and inhaling cigarettes like their life depended on it. That would be more offensive, because (to me at least) you’re hitting the reasons you’re not going in, alcohol abuse, dirty air, overweight donks who swear and such.
- To ask if the USBC or the PBA could save this tournament, you have to remember a few things. When it comes to the USBC, they are folks who have people like Jerry Anderson of the Dallas USBC blow a gasket when your one-time sanction fee would go up one whole US dollar. They are many folks who get pissed and butthurt over one-time 300 rings. Do you think that, if the US Open lost money with the USBC running it (which is probable, lets be honest for anyone running it), that you’ll ever hear the end of it about “wasting the money of the Bowlers”? Come on. PBA wise, there’s a reason they gave it back to the BPAA a few years ago. They are grinding for people to show up to suburbia Oklahoma City and Las Vegas here in a few months.
- The argument of spending $200k to televise the tournament is a valid one. To me, the internet is much friendlier right now than giving ESPN/Winnacom a boat of money to show me Terrell Owens with a bunch of PBA Pros in a skill shot competition that you’re just using to fill the 30 extra minutes. Mike Flanagan of InsideBowling just ran his $10k to win Open in StL this weekend, and his tourney and running of the webcast and such were straight up money. XtraFrame has been a hit at a nominal cost, and the USBC wrecks it with their webstreams of Open, College, Women’s Open and other tourneys. So, then again, why is it that damn important to get on ESPN and fight with things like the NFL, NBA, College Basketball and such? Are there people that just refuse to open a computer or fire up a tablet to watch a bowling tournament? Hell, I yell TYBG every Saturday for the laptop and iPad that I have so that I can stream up to 7 College Football games and such to myself digitally every Saturday. Nevermind that’s what I do, but I’d probably use it at the same way if I wasn’t going to watch Nebraska or their opponents or the sport in general. $200k is roughly, what, 40% of your costs to run the tourney? I know Flanagan had a great little scenario in a comment on a Facebook post about this. You don’t need the TV, you just need to advertise it.
Now, I do realize that in the whole 1200’ish words I’ve put up above, I don’t really have a solid way to fix it all and have a tourney. But, it’s beyond fair to say there are suggestions that, when all pieced together, can give the tournament a little bit of a fairer chance to happen. It may certainly not, though, and for that there’s a lot of fingerpointing. I still think that blog post that started it all was to open eyes and not bury a grave. There’s only so much folks can do before everyone has to pitch into the garden and reap the harvest. When you have only a few folks planting for everyone and the rain dries up the crop, however, it seems like everyone has great ideas for getting food on the table. Right now, there’s not a lot of food on the table for the US Open Bowling Tournaments. That has to change.
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