Bowling was shortlisted (1 of 8 sports) for inclusion into 2020 Olympics
Sounds like a good move to me.
Thoughts??

http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/2015/06/21/tokyo-olympics-2020-baseball-softball-finalist-sports-squash-karate/

Had to see it for myself too. I think this would be great for the sport if it happens. Fingers crossed.

It was supposed to be an actual olympic sport the year we had the world war and the Olympics were cancelled.  It was slated to be real then...maybe we wouldn't have the death of a sport we have now.

Water under the bridge now.

However, I still think we are only seeing a decline of the sport in the US. Everywhere else it still appears highly competitive. Examples being Macau, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, most of Europe, the Middle East, and Australia/New Zealand.

We have enough countries bowling to definitely make the olympics.. and dare I say, more countries bowling than countries playing baseball.

BL.

So what country couldn't have put together a tug-O-war team?

The only way anyone can say that 'open bowling' is doing well is to 1) be in a metropolitan area and 2) acknowledge that any perceived increase in bodies inside the center is due to the substantial losses of centers across the past few decades.

Even at that, I have seen far too many even in metropolitan areas that are empty at times where they could have been far busier with competent management running promotions targeted at the local demographics....

And I doubt many look to the Olympics to gauge the relative health of a sport...after all, how many here have actually GONE curling because they saw it on the Olympics or opened up the phone book to find someplace to go take fencing lessons?  Yeah, that's what I thought...

Oh, and let us not forget the fiasco that was the PBA when they first went to the sport conditions (still also trying to forget about Koko mangling the anthem, but they are inextricably linked)...scoring was way down and the uninformed were just talking about how they sucked and that some scrub off the streets can post better scores at the local center.  If the goal is to 'wow' people into centers, then a score-fest would be required but that is also inconsistent with what the Olympics ought to be about... 

Get bowling in to the Olympics, then possibly get it as a varsity college sport on the mens side.  These may be small steps, and they wont restore the masses to league bowling for 32 weeks, but it does add to the credibility of the game as a sport, and give some incentive for young people to pursue the game as an avenue to an education and as something to be respected at the competitive level. 

I don't think bowling will ever become much of a college sport for men. Not unless Title IX gets repealed.

College programs are out there for men and going strong.  www.collegebowling.com
The problem is lack of TV/marketing and more importantly, the lack of high school bowling - outside the midwest and eastern seaboard.
College, even for men, doesn't have to mean NCAA.  NAIA schools don't offer official scholarships, but they do offer "incentive money" that many times is as good as what an NCAA scholarship would be.  The challenge is kids need to do the research.  NAIA schools don't have the recruiting abilities of an NCAA school.

I don't think you have to only look to NAIA schools.  NCAA schools have bowling for men also.  However, you will never get the same attention as you would if the schools themselves offered scholarships.  Currently, youth bowlers can compete for scholarships during their youth, yet it requires zero bowling activity in college to maintain them. 

In fact, I prefer the way bowling is on the men's side compared to the women's side.  Men's teams (club sport) don't have the same restrictions as the women's teams do.  They don't have to return books paid for by scholarship money.  They don't have to abide to the same eligibility rules either.  Can practice when you want for as long as you want.  All you have to do is be a student in good standing with the university (paid your money and don't have a 0.00 GPA).

And when it comes to other Olympic sports, if I didn't see curling on TV, then I wouldn't have even known it existed.  Getting bowling "the sport" to have a potential for a world-wide audience can only help.  And maybe the next time a viewer goes bowling, instead of seeing it as a way to drink beer, eat pizza and roll the ball through their legs, maybe they will see the more competitive side of it and maybe, just maybe, be curious to what the sport of bowling is like.

Let's say bowling gets the nod for the Olympics. And as huge as it is in Japan (gauging off of the Japan Cup) and the far east, it would have a nice sized field for it.. Since NBC would have the rights to it in the US, who do you'd think they'd send for commentators?

I could already see Randy going over, but I'm having the hardest time remembering when NBC last aired a bowling show, let alone who the commentators were..

I still see the barometer for this being the Pan Am games combined with the QubicaAMF World cup, as far as the number of countries and participants go.

BL.

Isn't Randy under contract with ABC/ESPN?