There has been a lot of talk lately about the integrity of the sport but what exactly do we mean - this idea of integrity? What are the inherent qualities that makes this or any other sport fair and creditable?
You can take a look at the qualities that make the sport honest, but without further examining how the sport of bowling lost it's way, then applying what we've learned to help return integrity back to the sport, we accomplish nothing. The status quo that has been maintained for the last 40 years will continue. We'll lose more participants and then we'll lose more bowling centers. It is of the utmost that we return integrity to the sport of bowling because as it stands right now this version of the "sport" is not selling. It's not generating a significant increasing viewership on TV. It's not generating the young talent in the numbers that we need to keep the sport vibrant. And it requires a lot of maintenance as we go to keep the illusion that the current game is a sport.
Let's glance at four major factors that determine the level of integrity for any competitive sporting event.
First, the object of the game must be set and kept at the same levels for everyone. Simply, the object of bowling is to knock down as many pins as possible to achieve the highest score. As to the basic object of the game, as long as there's no cheating, or any penalties imposed subjectively, we just have to rely on the math of one person knocking down more pins then the other person. We cannot arbitrarily raise the bar for one person or lower away for another. So therefore, all rules apply equally to all participants.
The second thing that we have to look at in a competitive sport deals with discrimination. Is this sport reasonably available to everyone on an equal basis? At the onset of the ABC, discrimination occurred because women and children were excluded from sanctioned competition. Also, bowling was known for the longest time as a whites only sport. But society and the regulatory body realized that these inequities were just that. Legislation was passed to allow everyone to participate on an equal basis. The regulatory body ultimately did its job.
As the governing body looked at discrimination in the sport, they proceeded to correct this in the right way. That is, they looked at doing the right thing first for the furtherance of the sport. And they did this without regards to how it affects the commercial or proprietary aspects of the game. And, as what usually happens, doing the right thing allowed greater interest in numbers in the sport. We could see evidence of that in the the formation of daytime women's leagues for example.
This idea of the body of the sport itself, the goodness in the wholesomeness and integrity of the sport first, is an important idea that we all must grasp. When the commercial and proprietary interest comes first before the "right thing to do" it degrades the sport. It has lead to the major reason why competitive bowling is in the dire straits that it is. We must do a 180° turn about and let commercial and proprietary interest follow the wholesomeness and credibility of the sport in the regulatory decisions that the governing body makes. Right now, and for the last 3 to 4 decades, it has been the reverse. It has devastated the sport. It has robbed competitive bowling of its participants. And most importantly, it has indirectly led to the closing of numerous bowling centers in the country.
With the advent the last couple of decades of new and more sophisticated equipment in bowling comes another restricted class of bowlers- economic class. The cost of equipping oneself with an arsenal to be truly competitive in the sport now places strains on even the most well to do parents, charged with bringing along junior bowlers who aspire to greater things. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it! It restricts a class of players from being able to participate. Unlike soccer for example, where all one needs is a pair of shoes and a ball, or basketball for one just need shoes and ball, competitive bowling requires an expensive littany of equipment to be competitive. And due to the planned obsolescence of new bowling balls, this expense just keeps on coming.
The third factor which defines the integrity of a competitive sport is- Do the playing conditions continually favor one athlete over another?
For the last 30 years in competitive bowling the answer to that question is a resounding yes. One of the most blatant examples is the lefty-righty controversy. As lane conditions and bowling equipment evolved, we began to realize that the left side and right side conditions were infrequently the same. That by changing the pattern, they can effectively "shutout" the left or the right side with a large degree of certainty. If we found that too many weeks in a row the lefties are dominating, we could change the pattern to shut them out.
The din of the argument of the lefty righty controversy hides an important realization of the effects of different lane patterns. Each and every pattern favors one competitor over another. It is inherent in every lane pattern. It is not confined only to the lefty-righty controversy, but the power player over the line player or the finesse player over the player who uses brute force and revolutions. And as lane conditions evolve over a block it may bring one style of player to the forefront while another style of player falls by the wayside. It is this favoring of one competitor over another which erodes the credibility of the sport.
In an effort to solve these inequities, we continually create new patterns with different characteristics in order to try to even out the competition. But this just compounds and multiplies the problem. We must realize that any introduction of a foreign substance on the playing surface will corrode the integrity of the sport. Like it or not, lane conditioner is a foreign substance applied to the playing surface. The answer is to have a completely clean playing surface. But right now, we really don't have the technology to make this an affordable reality for the bowling centers. We can however, minimize this effect by applying the lowest volume conditioner possible while still maintaining the protection of the lane surface itself. Doing this will require a revolution in how we look at equipping this game. It also requires a considerable leap of faith.
The fourth and by far the most important factor in determining whether or not a sport has a high level of integrity and credibility lies in the answer to this question- Do the results of the contest depend completely on the exclusive action and skill of the participants?
Currently, in competitive bowling the answer this question is a resounding no.
The evolution of lane conditions and equipment technology has taken a large portion of the skill out of the hands of the participants and infused it in the latest technology. Results do not necessarily reflect the skill of the participant. No longer is practice and practice needed to refine the skills of the aspiring kegler. One can now go into the pro shop and purchase themselves a game. Practice is no longer needed or desired or affordable! And when the results of the contests are influenced by outside means, the credibility of the sport is called into question.
So where did we go wrong? How as an industry did we let this happen?
The answer lies with regulating proprietary and commercial interests first with the integrity of the sport a distant second. For years now the ABC/USBC has demurred to the pressure of the proprietary groups and commercial interests. This lassiez-faire approach to governing the sport has been a disaster. To revive competitive bowling, we all in the industry must adopt the idea once again of the goodness and wholesomeness of the sport coming first and that naturally the commercial and proprietary interests will follow. It is a difficult idea to grasp. We as human beings tend to want instant gratification.
Are there other factors that led to the decline of competitive bowling? Of course. But when we look at the rate of decline of participants and just as important venue, comparing them to other competitive sports controlled by a governing body, not one comes close to the extreme loss of participants and venue that we see in competitive bowling. All of these other sports have had to deal with the same social and economic changes over the last 40 years. None of the major competitive sports have the overwhelming decline that competitive bowling has had.
We are running out of places to play!
The following is a
posted response I made to a bowler on the web. It concerns the
rationale of my complaint against USBC with regards to scoring and
integrity issues. The questioner was a proprietor who had bought a
center with a reputation for lower scores and invested in a lane
machine, talent and time to inflate his scores and compete in the
scoring sweepstakes. By inflating his scores, he was successful in
increasing his league bowling base 50% and I am in no way unhappy for
him and his success. I am using his example to demonstrate how hard it
will be to reintroduce integrity back into the game without forcing the
governing body to undertake complete and total reform of the sport. It
is a demonstration of what is so very wrong with our sport and why the
winners in the scoring sweepstakes are reluctant to change anything.
The words in quotes are his, responding as a critique of my article
"Integrity vs Viability". I invite comments from the reader.
"... you give the (league bowling) customer what they want, not what you want them to have."
I
offer this hypothetical. If the customers come to you and say they
would like you to nail a couple of 2 by 4's into the pocket to make it
easier for them to score, here's hoping that the majority of
proprietors would say no. And not just on the point that it would
damage the lane surface, but on the basis of the elimination of all
integrity in the sport. There's
nothing "sporting" about shooting
ducks in a barrel. So no, you don't always give the customer what they
want. There is a line there between what the customer wants and what is
correct with leaving the "sport" in our pastime.
Now let's say
that your customers ask your competitor if she would like to nail 2 by
4's into her lanes to make scoring easier and she says yes- if that
would make you happy enough to come over and bowl at her place. So off
they go to your competitor.
You complain to the governing body
that your competitor is nailing 2 by 4's into their lanes and their
scores are of course going through the roof.
Now the governing
body looks at this and because it took its merry time (three decades)
to make any decision, let alone the correct decision, an association of
proprietors now complain that business will go down in the centers that
have installed 2 by 4's. And yes, the providers of 2 by 4's complain
that they have invested in the production and sales of 2 by 4's to
these centers. So now the governing body yields to these proprietary
groups and allows 2 by 4's to be nailed into the lanes but specifies
that they be no longer than say 24 feet.
You beginning to see
what I'm aiming at? You would be mad. Damn mad. And the fault would
rest entirely on the governing body for not doing its job. And if you
say Jim, your story has no basis in reality, this would never happen. I
offer you the fact that this has happened. The only difference between
my story and reality is that modern lane machines, lane conditioners
and equipment have rendered the 2 by 4's invisible.
"...We
bought a center with exactly that reputation (lower or traditional
scoring) and have seen our league bowlers improve by 50% in now our 6th
season. Of course we bought a lane machine 3 months into our first
season and our scores exploded."
Way to go, your are winning the
scoring sweepstakes. However you are maintaining an advantage in an
unfair and unregulated contest with winners and losers, willing and
unwilling participants and proprietors that for the sake of the sport
won't nail 2 by 4's into their lanes.
But what would have
happened if your center was one of the unlucky one's that after you
bought your machine your scores didn't "explode"? Maybe you could get
them to go up, but for some reason not totally in your control you
couldn't get them nearly as high as your competitors? How hard then
would it have been to overcome the reputation that your house had? I
doubt very seriously that you would have achieved the numbers that you
did, but I don't know exactly what success you would have had because
each demographic situation is unique.
To further illustrate my point, I offer you the following challenge.
Take
your "exploding" scoring shot out and put a PBA experience shot in. All
leagues all the time. Make it an easy shot, maybe a modified cheetah
with a little bump on the outside to be a little forgiving. But make
the shot something that the average bowler could enjoy and still be
required to come close to hitting what their aiming at. And don't put
it in for one season, put in for let's say four. What would happen?
It would be like yelling "Fire!" in a theater.
You
couldn't stand in the door and stop your hard fought 50% increase in
league bowlers from fleeing to a competitor with higher scores than
yours.
Most importantly, the winning proprietors in the scoring
sweepstakes who have the increase in league bowlers drawn from THE
LOSING houses know this all too well. These are by far the elements in
the bowling industry who are of course, not interested in changing
anything for fear of losing their dubious (with respect to the
integrity of the sport) gains. This is one of the primary reasons we as
an industry refuse to reform the sport.
Now after your leagues
have been decimated, your investment is in dire straights. You are a
small center that is located in a small market and you can't replace
the lost league lineage with open play because even if your the
greatest operator of bowling centers the country has ever seen, there
is not enough people available to draw upon. You have cash flow
problems that don't allow for reinvestment in the upkeep of your
center. You start down a death spiral towards another bowling center
closure.
You don't always give the customers what they want. If
you consistently do, sometimes everyone involved ends up with little
more than nothing.
