here's some further info on the series. . . From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bowling Revolution P★League (
? P★League, Boringu Kakumei Pi-ri-gu) is a series of women-only
bowling tournaments, developed solely for
television. The tournament is open only to selected members of the
Japan Professional Bowling Association (JPBA),
Japan Bowling Congress(JBC), and members of the JBC Japan national team. The show airs throughout Japan every Sunday from 5:30pm to 6:00pm (30 minutes) on BS Nippon (BS???).
The "P" in P★League has five meanings: "Pretty", "Power", "Passion", "Performance" and "Perfect".
History
During the 1970s, bowling was very popular among the Japanese. Japan had as many as 3,697 bowling establishments during the 1970s. By the late 1990s, the number has shrunken to only 600. In 2008, there were 1,100 bowling establishments; 25.1 million people bowled in Japan - about one in five Japanese.
In the early 1970s, the JPBA, along with the JBC and the Bowling Proprietors Association of Japan(BPAJ) produced a series of televised bowling tournaments called Ladies! Challenge Bowl (?·??), in the attempt to further push the sport's appeal, as well as showcase the women who competed in the three-year old JPBA. Big names such as Ritsuko Nakayama and Kayoko Sudacompeted in these tournaments. In all, sixty-two women participated in these tournaments. The formula worked - as the show's concept is used in many other Japanese bowling promotions on television, leading up to the present day.
Nakayama, along with the JPBA and the JBC, created P★League in 2006 in an attempt to revive bowling's popularity on television once enjoyed in the 1970s. The women who compete in P★League are labeled "idol" type athletes, since most of the bowlers tend to be marketed as such, and appear to look like the idols one would find in, for example, Japanese pop music. Despite the idol image, the professionals and amateurs who compete in P★League are among the best women bowlers in the world. All of the competitors hold an average of 190 or better, and several have bowled 300-gamesand 700-series.
