Growth in membership raises all boats, so your statement arguing against growth honestly makes no sense. Competitive bowling, both amateur and professional, benefit greatly when membership is strong making it more marketable because the audience is larger. Even if only 1% of membership is interested in the sport of bowling, 1% of 6 million is more than 1% of 1 million meaning more entries and more sponsors.
Manufacturers benefit from membership growth by selling more equipment whether it be to consumers in the form of bowling balls/accessories or proprietors in the form of capital equipment, some of which is invested back into the competitive bowling side of the sport...see above.
As a member, the obvious benefit is more money for programs investing in youth, education, member services, member acquisition/retention, and marketing bowling to the masses.
As for your comment about competitive bowling being better, professionals and amateurs are bowling for less money and fewer tournaments than 10 years ago. We have fewer bowling centers than 10 years ago and the number of competitive bowlers continues to decline along with membership, so I honestly don't know how you can make this statement.
I guess the USBC has convinced everyone that losing members every year for decades is acceptable and there's nothing to be done about it other than raising dues. If the USBC were actually held accountable for results like the rest of the world, they would have been fired long ago for incompetence.
Oh, I almost forgot, I could care less about awards from the USBC, grow the game!
