George,
In baseball, if someone is in single A, double A or Triple A, they are still considered Professional, not big leaguers, but still Professional. Maybe Semi-Pro is a better term to use.
Many bowlers have received full rides to schools via bowling scholarships that they earned while bowling in juniors. The point is that if bowling were a full NCAA sport, then any bowler who bowls for ANY kind of money would forfeit their scholarship by messing with their AMATEUR status.
Since bowling is only a club sport on the Men's side, then I guess there is a loophole that allows those collegiate bowlers to compete for money.
It's true the PBA has its problems, exempt tour probably being one of them. As far as a PBA player's earnings go, imagine if there were no more megabucks tournaments and all the money that is spent on promoting, organizing and advertising those tournaments was filtered to the Professional side of the game/sport, don't you think the Pros would make more?
More entries isn't the answer to increase the PBA's prize funds since the more bowlers they have means more bowlers getting paid (assuming a 1 in 4 payout ratio). The answer to higher prize funds is sponsors, advertising and promotion.
