Embracing Reform

2,325,074. This is the number of USBC sanctioned league participants for the 2008-9 season. This figure represents a loss of over 157,000 bowlers over the prior season.  To a competitive bowling enthusiast this number is disgusting.  It should anger even the most thick-skin members of the bowling industry.  It would be a stunning number except for the fact that we have grown numb at the latest in a series of straight line declines in sanctioned league and tournament participation.  For over thirty years now, we have come to expect it.  Growing the sport indeed!

But the subject of this article is not to lay blame or assigned cause to this disaster.  It is to ask a question of everyone within the bowling industry, from proprietors, pro shop operators to manufacturers, brokers, mechanics and yes, the remaining sanctioned bowlers why they would object to immediate total reform of the way we govern, market and promote sanctioned competitive bowling in this country.  Why are we so hesitant to change?  After 30 years of decline why are we as an industry afraid to take the leap of faith to try to save ourselves?  The bowling industry itself is traveling down a branch of its evolutionary tree that leads to extinction.  We must examine why this is so, learn from our past history and go back to the point where we as an industry went astray.  We must then cut this branch off so that we never again go down this path to oblivion.

Some may say that we don't need to save competitive bowling.  Various entities made the decision that their future belongs on the recreational side exclusively.  But competitive bowling doesn't exist in a vacuum.  Its influence permeates the very fabric of the bowling business.  We see this in everything from equipment manufacturing, television viewership and promotion, training of mechanical and other center personnel, the science of lane maintenance and the fostering of both domestic and international competition.  We cannot afford to rely on recreational bowling as an insurance policy on the life of competitive bowling.

A large example of why total reform is needed lies with the Professional Bowlers' Association. Over the course of the last 10 years, about $30,000,000 has been invested in the organization.  Even though the PBA has very skilled marketing people, talented in directorship, driven with the charge of making the organization profitable, they are no closer in achieving their goals as they were 10 years ago.  Viewership is stagnant.  Prize money offered has not kept up with the rising costs and expenses of participating. The number of players, especially at the regional level has declined.  And the overall number of venues visited by the touring players has shrunk.  The problem lies not with the talented people involved but with the product itself.

Any product or service in need of reform will not sell.

Let's look at proprietorship.  One of the main arguments I get against reform is that if we made the lane conditions harder, that is one actually has to hit what their aiming at, half of my bowlers would get up and walk out-quit!!  Really?

I've got some news for you-Elvis has already left the building.  Over the course of the last 30 years, four out of every five bowlers have already quit!  If we as an industry do not reform the sport, the next generation of aspiring keglers will not know the sport. The figures indicate that even with a high league retention rate, left to its own momentum, competitive bowling will die within 15 years because we simply are not replacing the lost bowlers fast enough.  If your league business is built entirely on this house of cards so that a return of integrity to the sport leads to such a large percentage reduction in clientele then I suggest the bowlers you have retained are holding you and your center hostage.

Consider pro shop operators.  Faced with thinning margins, lower sales volume and the continued steady rise of both fixed and controllable expenses, it's easy to see why operators would view reform as a threat to their very existence.  Pro shop operations stand at the very crossroads the rest of the industry finds itself. Since the introduction of engineered cores and reactive resin surfaces in the early nineties, competitive bowling has lost over half its participants.  This means that operators have lost half their market share.  Most businesses can't begin to overcome the stress on revenues such a loss produces.

But consider a recreational bowling only scenario where pro shop operators lose their entire market.  Do you think dad is going to go for that $250 reactive resin high RG bowling ball just for the company corporate outing?  Do you think mom snatches up that high-flare pocket shredding ball for her daughter's cosmic bowling birthday party?  No, pull one off the rack.  So ball companys better like manufacturing house balls. Shoe companies better be into rental shoes.

But we can't sell plastic or (God forbid) rubber bowling balls with pancake weight blocks,  returning to a bygone era. The reformists want to take us back in time.

Back in those days we sold a lot of rubber and plastic bowling balls. The reason was the demand for them.  And we fulfilled that demand with specific products.  We tailored our business to the demand of the consumer.  We didn't force our product on the consumer as we do with today's high tech bowling balls but rather we let the consumer come to us.  It was a consumer driven market with a higher volume share.  If we enact equipment reform which requires us to eliminate resin and engineered cores, we would recreate the market for less aggressive coverstocks and balanced equipment.  And if reform saves competitive bowling from extinction, it may produce an environment where sales volumes actually rise!

What about the strictly recreational and Family Entertainment Centers? These complexes are usually designed with game areas, food and beverage sections and a bowling complex.  They are designed to operate independently of competitive bowling.  They offer recreational bowling (with exceptions) to a generally urban and upscale market.

Some of the chains are finding out that Family Entertainment Centers may have a hard time surviving without competitive bowling.  The reason lies in the difficulty finding skilled and experienced operators.  Without competitive bowling venues or traditional bowling centers that breed operational talent, recreational bowling centers may have to rely on personnel trained basically in other specialties- food and beverage, games etc., to maintain the bowling center. The bowling side of the business may lie half empty as the pinsetters don't go up and down. The desk operator may be just that-untrained or lack the savvy and experience to promote bowling.  How long does an operator wish to hold onto a section of his business that is not producing the required revenue?  How long until she replaces the bowling center with an alternative that does?

The most efficient and profitable bowling venues are operated by experienced bowling professionals who garnish their training and experience in a competitive bowling environment.

What is needed to save competitive bowling is total reform.  It's not just tweaking an RG limit or differential measurements on bowling balls.  It's not just adding a few ounces or singly voiding bowling pins.  It will require not just a complete legislative overhaul of the sport but the way we as an industry think of competitive bowling.

We are running out of places to play!



   As many of you know, we have spoken with hundreds of people both within and outside of the bowling industry in an effort to garnish ideas on how to fix our broken sport. We have listened to all ideas presented, whether or not they have agreed with our methods. We have rendered the information down to six areas of remedy. Please note that these proposals are still in the formative stages and are of course, subject to revisions, additions and deletions. I also want to let the contributors know that we have respected your requests to keep your identities unknown as many of you work and are gainfully employed by special interest groups in the industry.

1. Restructuring the current lane certification process.

We propose a lane certification process that is national in scope and implementation. Bring what we measure and how we measure into the 21st century

2. Lane conditions and equipment specifications.

This is the "hardware" aspect of the integrity issues currently infecting our sport. We propose the following:
The use of a limited amount of lane dressing that still allows for protection of the lane surface (lowest volume condition) in conjunction with a low ratio of side to side application of the conditioner. The outlawing now, of bowling balls that ablate or use particle technology. Outlawing of any devise that is installed for the enhancement of the action of flat gutters, kickbacks, side boards, edgeboards or pin decks. Making the lowest weight of pins 3 pounds 8 ounces and singly voiding them.

3. The establishment of a national average book.

This is the "software" side of the integrity issue. We propose the book be in three parts. The first section ranks and compares all certified bowling centers with respect to their place in the scoring environment. We have come up with the methodology to do this and use data that already exists. The second section would include the bowlers individual averages much like the average books locals distribute now. It would contain much more information on each bowler, however and be different for each association that the book is distributed to. The third section would be a listing of all USBC certified tournament results for each bowler. This would help greatly the tournament directors in their efforts to weed out sandbaggers and others trying to gain an unfair advantage in tournament play. By publishing a national average book, we would move forward to the eventual enactment of a slope-rated handicap system.

4. Allow unsanctioned leagues to enroll with the USBC as associate members.

 Require payment of only the national dues for members of the unsanctioned league that are not members of any other USBC league. Charge a nominal amount (to cover the cost of bonding and administration) for bowlers that are members of another USBC league for each unsanctioned league enrolled in and require 100% player participation for the unsanctioned league to be enrolled.
In return, the associate members are extended all the features of both the financial and legal aspects
of membership. As long as all the rules are followed, bond the league. As long as the proper procedures
are followed, allow individuals the same process for grievance as exists for sanctioned league members with regard to financial and discriminatory matters only. (Civil rights)
Unsanctioned leagues must bowl on USBC certified lanes. As long as all of the eligibility requirements
are met, allow associate members to participate In any and all USBC national, state and local
tournaments. Issue associate membership identification cards.
The unsanctioned league bylaws dictate the playing rules, lane conditions and equipment
specifications the league members will play under. Any grievance that pertains solely to these matters
will be referred back to the league officers for adjudication. No averages will be submitted to the USBC.
Associate members will not be eligible for any awards program. Any unsanctioned league that wishes to
continue its affiliation with the USBC as such must enroll by the start of each season. Any league that wishes to sanction will be allowed to upgrade their membership at any time by following the
normal sanctioning procedures and paying the appropriate fees..
 
5. The establishment of a regulatory and equipment specification body within the USBC that is totally independent from any special interest group.

 A "firewall" would be established between this department and any outside influence in order to eliminate conflicts of interest. Their power to enact changes in rules and regulations would be absolute. The body would be staffed by outstanding members of the bowling community who would have no outside interest in any for-profit group or groups that advise for-profit bowling entities.

6. The establishment of a department within the USBC that deals exclusively with municipal governments and community relations.

This would be to possibly review zoning and taxation laws and the possible ownership and operation of municipal bowling centers as a way of helping current centers in distress stay open. In return for these considerations by the local governments involved, the USBC would provide expertise in the operation and promotion of municipal operated bowling centers.

Enough is Enough!


"Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport - the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition..." ABC's Wide World of Sports Introduction

Every Saturday, when I was a much younger soul, like clockwork this poem recited. After the bowling match reached its conclusion, the last "so long" from the bowling venue ushered in these fine words. So familiar was its chant that you could close your eyes and just imagine the terrible spill that each week on cue, the unfortunate ski jumper would undertake.

And yet the true meaning of these words, the true heartbeat of sport itself, has flat-lined in the last three decades as applied to the sport of competitive bowling. It has been an eye opening experience to witness just how many prominent players in the sport have deemed it lifeless.

Dead. No pulse. With just as many of them expressing the opinion that the game that remains is not worth resuscitating. How awful indeed to witness such a beating and to report such a morbid declaration from those who once rode success to the very pinnacle of the profession.

Friends of the sport of bowling take heart, it remains far from dead. It is impossible to kill a sport - to do so would require the execution of emotion. It would mandate the suspension of human drama as a belief, the end of the definition of winning or losing.

For as long as there are human beings in existence, the idea and the basic instinct of competition will attract us all. There will be the victors and the vanquished.

You can hold a sport hostage, locking it away until a commercial or proprietary ransom is paid. You can water down a sport, holding up the house of cards that remains, spending excess time and money on the illusion.

One can turn their backs on a sport, ignore it by redefining such as purely a "recreational activity". The failure to oversee, care for, and regulate may be the left hand, all the while handing out self-congratulatory awards and honors for a job seemingly well done the right.

Foolishly, you can borrow against the credibility of the sport for short term gain until exhausted, the victim seeps functional bankruptcy.

And finally you can betray a sport and all of the fine people behind it who have worked their entire lives promoting such by the callous and unbelievable allowance of the consumption of alcohol during the highest levels of competition.

In direct violation of the vision statement the "leadership" has cast their lots upon the clothes of the sport. For shame!

Financial insecurity is no excuse for this profanity. The sport of bowling has existed for more than a century in this country. Throughout good times and bad, two world wars, a great depression and subsequent periods of recession, the sport of bowling has and will endure.

The excuse, "Wait and see, this is a trial run." holds no water and reveals one of this panels greatest shortcomings. Government by reaction is an invitation to utter failure. The care and nurturing of anything worthwhile requires constant vigilance.

Being proactive in oversight must be an absolute in preventing the erosion of the credibility of any sport. The reactionary government reveals a stunning lack of planning.

An opportunity exists now to renew the sport of competitive bowling. We have a comprehensive plan and willing volunteers, driven by their passion to help fine tune and implement it.

The general outline of the plan is based on the six areas of remedy that have been previously published. The end result will be a refreshing concentration on the revitalization of the sport with emphasis on the long term health.

The risk of doing nothing, of business as usual is profound. After declining for a period of four decades, the sport of bowling is poised to enter an extended period of its dark ages. By allowing it to do so, we will have to spend much more effort, time, money and resources to undertake an eventual renaissance.

We ask to speak in front of the entire delegation assembled in Reno to explain our proposal. Then it will be up to these delegates who wish to stand up for all of us and take back their congress and our sport from the mirage that is the current "leadership" of the USBC