Do you buy a ball because you see a pro on TV using it and like the reaction?

While I saw a lot of this 10 years ago it does not seem to be near as prevalent today. Someone would use a new Nitro on TV and we would have a dozen inquiries about the ball. Today hardly anyone seems to notice.

The manufactures must agree as well because many of them continue to trim staffers from their payrolls or at least greatly reduce the amount they are willing to pay and the amount of incentives for using a ball on TV. They have decided that putting regional players on staff mostly for just free equipment gets the message out better to the local bowlers better than TV exposure. This way the get balls into local centers in better bowlers hands and the bowlers are then impressed by seeing the balls first hand rather than on TV.

Since I also maintainthe Dyno-thane website, I can tell you that television exposure has a huge impact on website traffic.  I can't give you numbers, but everytime Walter Ray made the show, that Monday the traffic on the website spiked considerably.

People DO check out the ball that was being thrown.  Without a doubt.  Does that necessarily translates to sales?  I'll wager the big online pro shops can answer that.

Doesn't NASCAR have a saying... something like, "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday."  If the Chevy won the race, that car's sales would spike the very next day.  I might have that wrong a little bit, someone chime in here who knows NASCAR.

There are two ways to sell a ball... convince the ball buyer that they need the ball, or convince the "influencers" (i.e. pro shop operators, local pros, etc) that they need to recommend the ball.  that's my opinion anyhoo.

Tony Melendez
http://www.allBowling.com

Edited on 10/6/2003 4:55 PM