USBC and Storm Products have agreed on a national tournament exclusion rule and ball exchange program for six Storm Products manufactured ball models. The agreement comes after USBC identified the models having a percentage of balls produced below USBC minimum 73D hardness specification. Read more: https://bowl.com/News/NewsDetails.aspx?id=23622337509

USBC's investigation showed a percentage of these ball models measured below the USBC-required hardness level of the approval samples submitted by Storm. Storm collaborated with USBC after being notified of this testing.

The affected models include: Storm Phaze 4, Storm Electrify Solid, Storm Trend 2, 900 Global Altered Reality, 900 Global Wolverine, Roto Grip UFO Alert

Effective March 30, 2022, these balls models are prohibited from use in USBC national tournaments, including but not limited to, the USBC Masters, U.S. Open, USBC Open Championships, USBC Women's Championships, all PWBA Tour events, USBC Junior Gold and Youth Open Championships, USBC Intercollegiate Championships, USBC Team USA Trials, USBC Senior Masters and USBC Senior Queens.

These ball models remain USBC approved. Each USBC competition, whether tournament or league, has the option to adopt USBC's national tournament rule prohibiting use of these balls or to continue to allow their use.

USBC has shared this national tournament rule with Storm and has Storm's support. Storm will offer owners of the affected balls the option to exchange their balls for a new product. Information about the exchange program will be published later this week on StormBowling.com.

I'm wondering how Storm will handle the "exchange" of the affected balls.  With the Spectre, they did not want the ball back but obviously that can't be used in any sanctioned competition.

I have a Trend 2 that is the #1 ball in my bag that I will probably hang on to as long as I can legally use it in local stuff.

Will Storm "exchange" it for a new ball but not want my Trend 2 back or will I have to give it up in order to get it replaced?  I'm sure we will find out later this week when Storm announces the exchange program.

I am also wondering if Storm is going to only replace balls for people bowling in the national tournaments.  This situation is slightly different than the Spectre.  The Spectre was banned outright from all sanctioned competition.  These six additional balls are not [not yet, anyway].  Part of me thinks that was the deal that Storm cut with the USBC on this.  Ban it from the tourneys, but don't revoke the certification.  We will stop manufacturing/selling these balls and replace all balls for the national tourney bowlers but will not have to for everyone since it can still be used in leagues.  Just throwing speculation out there...

I am also wondering if Storm is going to only replace balls for people bowling in the national tournaments.  This situation is slightly different than the Spectre.  The Spectre was banned outright from all sanctioned competition.  These six additional balls are not [not yet, anyway].  Part of me thinks that was the deal that Storm cut with the USBC on this.  Ban it from the tourneys, but don't revoke the certification.  We will stop manufacturing/selling these balls and replace all balls for the national tourney bowlers but will not have to for everyone since it can still be used in leagues.  Just throwing speculation out there...
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I think this would be even worse than exchanging all the balls. If you tell people that their balls may be illegal in their leagues and tournaments but because they don't attend a large USBC tournament their 3-6 balls won't be replaced will cause a lot of people to walk.

Storm QC is either non-existent or has been sleeping at the switch, there is no way something on this scale should happen to so many balls. Even if it was a supplier issue it shouldn't be so wide spread. If it can be isolated to a supplier or two there may be some recourse if they missed spec.

I think a lot of staffers may be nervous come contract time as this is going to be expensive.

No way Storm wants these balls back, why pay $10-$20 a ball return shipping just to turn around and pay disposal fees.

The story gets better.  According to Riggs the PBA is going to allow the use of all 6 balls going forward. 

 Holy crap.

  It just keeps getting worse and worse........

Thought of this.  Only what 5% of USBC current membership bowls nationals?  USBC bans the 6 from nationals.  Now only those bowlers need replacements ASAP.  Storms can handle that now.  Yes a few days of bowlers got screwed by the timing.  But banning all 6 from all sanctioned competition immediately, you are screwing over the average league bowler and USBC would prefer not to do that because the average league bowler makes more money for USBC than the nationals bowler.  At the end of the season, USBC probably extends the ban to all sanctioned competition, but by then Storm will have been able to pour enough replacement equipment to handle the volume of exchanges for the league bowler.

If you left the 6 balls available to the end of nationals, I can bet hundreds of people will have bought the illegal balls just for nationals making money for Storm in the process.

CUT AND PASTE FROM PBA WEBSITE:

MARCH 30, 2022 TOM CLARK
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With regards to the USBC decision to ban select bowling balls from different levels of its certified competition, there may be some confusion over what equipment is allowed in the PBA. The following is intended to clarify the situation relative to the PBA.

To review Tuesday’s United States Bowling Congress announcement, the USBC prohibited the following six previously-certified bowling balls from use in USBC national events (including this week’s USBC Masters), but they remain allowed in other USBC competition (including league play): Storm Phaze 4, Storm Electrify Solid, Storm Trend 2, 900 Global Altered Reality, 900 Global Wolverine and Roto Grip UFO Alert.

All six of those bowling balls remain allowed in all PBA competition through the remainder of the 2022 PBA season. The PBA has no data or indication that those USBC certified bowling balls would fail field tests. Again, the six aforementioned bowling balls are allowed in all PBA-conducted competition, including the upcoming PBA Playoffs, PBA Tour Finals, PBA50 National Tour and PBA Regional Tour events.

The timing of Tuesday’s USBC ruling, during the USBC Masters, prompted the PBA to grant its members complimentary drillings on the player services trailer for bowling balls replacing the newly prohibited equipment. While the USBC Masters is a PBA Tour major championship, the event is conducted by the USBC under USBC rules.

I literally had a "what will the PBA do" conversation with someone this morning.  That has been answered.  What a total mess.

Yup Northface, you are correct. USBC put up money for the PWBA to come back.....so...yeah...