You can tell that they put a lot of planning and effort into putting together an awesome venue for the tournament. In my opinion it was the most impressive one yet.

It really was shame the production crew dropped the ball (excuse the pun) so early on with bad audio mixing at the start of the show, only to be followed with more technical difficulties where there was no sound at all for a few minutes. This really isn't anything new as the production crew seemed to have problems this entire swing. They really don't seem like they're capable of pulling off live broadcasts without problems.

P.S. Don't read this and think that starting a writing campaign to ESPN will help solve things. In fact writing ESPN would be the WORST thing to do because they're not responsible for the production and it would only reflect badly on the PBA and bowling in general!

[ 03-06-2001: Edited: Steve M ]

I'll be happy to see the regular format come back. A tournament like this focuses more on who you bowl when rather than how well you bowl in relation to the rest of the field. A bowler could have shot 268-279, but if his opponent shot 270-290, he is out of the whole tournament, even if those 2 bowlers were the only ones to break 210 those 2 games. The concept is diffrent, yes, but it is flawed. Luck of the draw becomes more a factor than the actual skill of the players as a whole. The original format is much better.

However, the original format is not without its downfalls either. A player can lead a 56 game format by 500+ pins, lose one match, and come in second place. It's happened before, and perhaps the best solution lies between these two formats. However, given the 2 choices, I'd have to say the original format comes out way ahead. :p

I prefer the regular format, and I definitely would have prefered to see more matches on the telecast. I found myself walking out of the room during the interviews and other stuff. But for variety, it was very interesting, and I definitely like the idea of the fan vote.

While I agree that lay people need to know about the bowlers, and agree with several of the points made by PBA commissioner, I'd definitely rather see more BOWLING than talk.

Now we have to wait til September for more bowling *sigh*

I had to laugh at the interview they had with the commissioner. His little speech would have been better made at an industry convention and not to bowlers. This guy has to realize who he is speaking to and change his verbiage and message.