BallReviews
General Category => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: Mighty Fish on August 28, 2012, 08:17:33 PM
-
Do bowlers really notice or care about the diminished -- or almost non-existent -- bowling coverage in their local newspapers or the media, in general?
This Examiner.com column comments on the situation ...
http://www.examiner.com/article/do-bowlers-really-care-about-lack-of-coverage-media-newspapers?cid=db_articles
-
Diminished? Half of nothing is still nothing.
-
The question should be what coverage - Was getting tired of seeing the same old people bowl week after week besides 1 of 2 new faces...
-
well i believe the article basically explained it...
it said that X bowlers are regularly bowling honor scores yet do not get any type of recognition in the papers..... well if they are bowling a 300 or 800 that often, then how special is it?? not very.....
20+ years ago, a 300 / 800 was still special....
now, someone bowls a 300, and it's like ummmm ok, it was on a easy shot and he pulled this shot or went brooklyn twice, or yanked this shot and got lucky... nobody cares..
yet in golf... the standard between being a local pro or house pro or w/e vs being on the tour is still very visable.. people in golf know the difference between being good on the local course vs shooting 90+ on a PGA course..
If bowling went back to the old school days where averaging 200+ was actually considered good.... and bowling alley's stopped pumping out 300's like it was their job...
then maybe bowling would get more recognition when someone would shoot a Honor score.
Heck i can remember back in 2000, i shot a 300 during our city tournament and was mentioned in the local paper in the city I lived in at the time...
2 years later, i shoot 2 - 300's a 299 and various other scores and didnt have any of my scores mentioned in the local paper.. WHy?? because all of the places in town started pumping out 300's like it was going out of style... So every week someone was or several people was shooting 300 or 800...
-
The problem with diminished media coverage is that it is a symptom not a cause of anything. Name a sport that gets local media coverage to any great degree unless there is an established professional level that gathers fan interest because of big prize money.
Most people measure the prestige of a sport by the amount of money the pros can make. I remember in the 60's and early 70's when bowling outdrew golf and even the NBA on network tv. They weren't making great money then either, but the golfers where only making 2 or 3 times as much, rather than 50 times as much like is that case today.
-
You mean bowling gets covered in papers?
-
Bowling in my local paper not that I read it anymore only got scores that were posted. But that was live events. How respectable is a sport that is tape delayed? f
-
Gosh, I never would have guess that it was an article by Bill Herald. ::) When are people going to get over the fact that bowling's "glory days" are 20 years behind them? Tour on tv live not even half the time, on a cable channel that not everybody gets, no-name new-name Europeans, the list goes on and on. Tell me, is pro darts covered in your paper? How about pro billiards? No? Shocking. They are on the same level of the public radar as bowling. The bowling industry and bowlers have to learn to be content with recognition from within the bolwing world itself and coverage from the two magazines devoted to bowling. That's all your going to get.
-
Dear Long Gone Daddy:
Whereas local bowling -- or PBA bowling, with a few exceptions, for that matter -- gets absolutely no space in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's sports Scoreboard, the sports department has no trouble finding space for such things as German and English soccer scores on a regular basis.
-
Ummmmm, soccer is the worlds number one sport, right, so why are you surprised at media coverage ????
-
Exactly. Bowling has no where near the cache. Look around you, Herald. See all the fields with kids playing soccer? See all the Latinos and Cubans kicking a ball around? Notice they ain't bowling?
Once again, this is a thread started for the sole reason of Herald recycling an old column of his.
Ummmmm, soccer is the worlds number one sport, right, so why are you surprised at media coverage ????
-
Ummmmm, soccer is the worlds number one sport, right, so why are you surprised at media coverage ????
The newspaper runs soccer because it's easier to take it off the wire (rather than have a staffer compile local bowling news and enter it into the system).
-
Ummmmm, soccer is the worlds number one sport, right, so why are you surprised at media coverage ????
The newspaper runs soccer because it's easier to take it off the wire (rather than have a staffer compile local bowling news and enter it into the system).
Cool, whatever, it is still the worlds number on sport and you are still bitching or surprised that it is not in the paper. Why? Newspapers themselves are old news, I am sue this has something to do with diminished bowling articles too. Not to mention, no one really cares about bowling, bowlers do not even care what some one else shot on any given night and why should they ?
-
Kinda hard to respect a sport that is tape delayed. They can still get sponsors but get as much media coverage now as poker and pool. Live events do make a difference. Couldn't imagine a NFL game tape delayed.
-
True. I don't want to watch an event that I already heard the results of on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever.
-
I don't think that integrity in scoring has anything to do with the interest in the pro tour.
The reasons the golf Pro tour has grown so dramatically are a few things. Up to 100,000 fans can attend at a venue. (lots of cash for a large prize fund before even sponsorship). Golf also doesn't waste hardly an iota of time trying to educate the consumer on difficult couses versus easy. Scoring will vary all the from 30 under par at a fun venue to barely par at a difficult US open site. No body cares or worries about the great scoring days...they just enjoy them.
Lastly golf participation is not driven by regular participation in leagues which really drove the growth of bowling. Let's face it, as 9 to 5 salary jobs have disappeared in our society, 6 O clock leagues for 36 weeks don't fit that well in the average person's schedule. Hence bowling participation is down.
I think this whole scoring integrity thing is overblown. Bowling and the pro tour are down because of less participation by the average person in bowling thus low interest, small venues preventing large ticket revenue , and too much education versus entertainment on the pro tour as illustrated by many tournaments several years ago that had abysmal scoring that BORED the public. They've never come back!
Regards,
Luckylefty
PS I recently visited a couple of senior tour stops and watched the incredible pros out there on their ever so slightly modified(easier?) patterns and the excitement was palpable! Too bad that has interest for the sport in general has already faded.
PPS please don't ever show me another Woman's college baker toruney on a sport pattern again with scores of under 150! Enough education already.
-
Kinda hard to respect a sport that is tape delayed. They can still get sponsors but get as much media coverage now as poker and pool. Live events do make a difference. Couldn't imagine a NFL game tape delayed.
... but the topic at issue is why newspaper bowling coverage of local leagues is non-existent whereas local golf receives daily coverage.