I was just wondering if there will be a U.S. Open, I heard it was scrapped because of the incompetence of the powers that be of both PBA and the BPAA. Is this true? Will Wes Malott and Liz Johnson, the players who each the Men'a and Women's U.S. Open titles last year even get a chance to defend their titles???

ESPN needs to sell the PBA, I suggest to Vince McMahon, who turned his late father's fledgling Northeast-based promotion known then as the WWF from an unknown to a multi-billion-dollar global empire in which the WWE is today, I believe that HE would provide better ownership for the PBA than ESPN and the current owners ever could.

Plus, he can get us a better time slot for us that would be far better for the long-term health of the PBA rather than the current time slots they have right now, going up against the NFL and tape-delayed events like they have on cheap third-tier cable channels (like CBS Sports Network is) that hardly anyone even knows exists and that carriers may not have.

Also, Vince can cross-market and bring awareness to the PBA through WWE programming and the PBA can market the WWE shows and PPV events on PBA programming as well. Also, he can bring more attention to our great sport and the top level of it to the very same masses who watch WWE RAW and other WWE shows by having PBA stars make appearances on shows like Raw, SmackDown!, and Main Event, and have WWE Superstars on sets of PBA telecasts during the year.

I know all this sounds ridiculous, but anything to save the Association and the Tour from the turmoil, financial debt and lack of brand recognition that just might force the PBA to cease operations altogether.

Here is what I was talking about a few years ago about tis very same subject:

http://www.bowlingcommunity.com/b/ubbthreads.php/topics/170821/PREDICTION:_The_PBA_will_cease.html#Post170821

I believe since the PBA was re-aligning its season to run from January through December, this year will end a season that began part-way through 2013, and included the 2013 US Open. For this reason, I believe, there will be no 2014 US Open. Wes and Liz will get to defend their titles at the 2015 Open, however. The BPAA took over the US Open in 2013, and from what I understand, did a terrible job in handling the event. This is the most difficult event to win (which is one of the only props I give PDW, since he's won 5 of these), and easily one of the most prestigious, so to botch it is inexcusable.

I know your point was to find owners who could promote the sport better than the current ones, but to their credit, bowling is just not as marketable as it once was. No amount of fireworks, loud music, and over the top trash talk is going to make the PBA the WWE. Even the WWE has seen ratings drop in recent years, and most people believe the MMA events have been the reason. Many viewers are turning the channel to watch actual fights, and not the staged matches that wrestling provides.
The marketing firm that the PBA employed for several years also had the UFC as a client, and they were able to market that organization efficiently. You can't just cross-market all of your clients, however. You have to get the two organizations to agree to help each other out, and I don't see the UFC offering to advertise for the PBA. Completely different image, and nothing that would help the UFC in any way.

I think I've said here numerous times that I'm a huge track and field fan. In many ways, track and bowling are in the exact same boat.

In the 70s, track was huge, people went to professional meets, and some of the American stars were household names. People knew Frank Shorter, Gerry Lindgren, Jim Ryun, Craig Virgin, etc. When Steve Prefontaine died, there was an official, National Day of Mourning in his honor.

Nowadays, no one other than fans watch track on TV (unless its the Olympics AND Usain Bolt is running.) Most Americans don't know Galen Rupp, Bernard Lagat, Evan Jager, or Matt Centrowitz and have no idea that American track and field is having a huge global resurgence in the last five years.

Track fans bemoan the death of the sport, the fact that pros struggle to make a living, and the lack of respect from the public They rattle off ideas on how to make for better TV, and how European track meets are still a very lucrative event.

The fact is, the American TV viewership isn't interested. The reason wrestling took off in the form of WWE is because of the soap opera element mixed with action and drama. If you did that to bowling, you'd never hear the end of the whining from the fans. And guess what...the WWE killed Pro Boxing, and MMA is killing the WWE. All things have a time and place, and the PBA's has come and gone.

And its looking like golf's golden age may soon be coming to an end as well too. When Tiger isn't golfing well, people don't tune in, ratings are bad, sponsors get nervous, and the galleries get much smaller. Once he's done, so is golf. Tiger single handedly turned golf into the MAJOR money machine it is today; the purses, gate sales, and viewer rating were nothing like they are today pre-tiger.

Its getting to the point that the NFL is so big, there may not be room for much else sometime soon. The NFL draft is NOT good TV, yet it somehow draws better viewer rating than a lot of NBA post season games. Its absurd.

Bottom line...there is no science to it. There is no way to know what will be a hit and what won't. And most importantly, when you're done, you're done. The PBA would be best off trying to figure out a way to get decent purse sizes without being on TV. It can be done. The internet is no longer the future, it is the now, and just like newspapers, someday soon the TV will we extinct.

And here's the sad, sad news that there will be no 2015 US Open. http://bowlingballexchange.com/showthread.php?t=59827

Perhaps its time that someone else take over the moniker, and run their own US Open.

That's extremely sad. Just saw it on FB.

Rising to the occasion.

Way to go Belmo! I too, much like you, want to see the great SPORT of bowling make it in this time and age. I know how hard it has been for either the PBA or the USBC to obtain non-bowling industry sponsors, and I was hoping that there would've been a U.S. Open this year, but with the news of the bomb-dropping of both this year's and next year's events, I am beginning to believe more and more that our great sport (at least as a professional level) is doomed here in the U.S..

If the money truly is better to bowl over in Europe than more power to all of you guys (and gals) to make the trip across the pond so all of you can maintain your professional status as ATHLETES, in which we bowlers are, and still be able to pay the bills.

...and another thing, if the PBA really is going to shorten up its schedule and tighten its wallet, they should just scrap TV altogether and simply broadcast the events LIVE exclusively on their Xtra Frame service, I'll be willing to pay to get it (once I move into a new household like tentatively planned for August 31st), hey, it's either that or the WWE Network, which also is a web/smart-phone-app only service, but the guys here at this board all think (and I'm beginning to agree with most of them) that the internet is both the now and the future, hey, if we can download Cindy Margolis from it, then why can't we watch Xtra Frame???

Cable and Satellite Television will soon go by the way of the buffalo, much like "rabbit-ears" free OTA TV (and radio) already has, and if the PBA and the USBC don't get their heads out of their collective duffs, we will soon lose our sport and our lane heroes too. CANCEL your TV contracts with those third tier networks such as CBSSN and poor time slots like on ESPN and just go exclusively LIVE ONLINE on Xtra Frame, The future is NOW!!! The WWE did it with the WWE Network, why can't you???

No U.S. Open in 2014 was bad enough news. But, to plan not having a U.S. Open in 2015 is a tragedy of epic proportions. Heads should roll for such negative thinking. What next, a government bailout?

So they estimate 70 million people bowl at least once a year. That's a pretty wide demographic as well. Advertisers want the 18-35 group, well, they're there too.

Car makers. Hotel Chains. Restaurants. Soda, beer, airlines, Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon.com.

The U.S. Open Sponsored by _____________

You have some celebrities that own teams in the PBA League. How about Lucky Strike?

How about NASCAR?


The bowling audience is a pretty huge demographic, and certainly fits well inside the other pro and amateur sports as well. I think the BPAA is probably the wrong organization to head this, but reasons for prior failures by others should be looked at.