win a ball from Bowling.com

Author Topic: Jim Goodwin article about WSOB was it a mistake?  (Read 865 times)

Coolerman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 680
Jim Goodwin article about WSOB was it a mistake?
« on: October 03, 2009, 09:48:57 AM »
BOWL O PINION       by Jim Goodwin

 

STOP Don't Turn The Page!

 
If you get all your news from TV, you might want to save this paper to read after Christmas.

 

   If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a noise?

   We keep hearing how "successful" the Professional Bowlers Association World Series of Bowling was . . .but unless a large audience watches the taped television shows, which air from October 25 – December 13, can it really be labeled successful?

   The concept was certainly groundbreaking, but outside of the Detroit market, how much attention did it garner among grassroots bowlers? Did the fans really understand the WSOB and try to follow it as it developed? Did the PBA do a good job of involving the bowling community (industry, manufacturers, media) for their support in promoting the event?

   We did pick up a little brochure in our local center a few weeks ago explaining the WSOB, but it was mostly aimed at trying to get top players to come to Detroit to bowl in the event. That is great for a very small number of bowlers, but we would like to see more for the 99.9% who have no aspirations of bowling as a pro, but would like to support the PBA, its members, and professional events.

   What is especially frustrating to us as bowling newspaper publishers is that print journalism does not seem to be on the PBA priority list. In fact, the very nature of the WSOB has put us in a precarious position. It is our job to report the news, but there seems to be a "new" definition of news.

   Our sacred obligation to our readers is to announce bowling events when we get press releases in advance, and to report results when they happen. Which brings us back to the old ‘tree in the forest’- if the event is over, but the finals have not yet been taped, or the finals have been taped but have not yet aired, has the event really "happened?"

   The younger folks out there who live on their cell phones and blackberrys, and watch mostly cable TV, and who text and tweet, and spend a lot of time on Facebook and other social networks are probably comfortable with bowling and other sports events that happen in August, but don’t air on TV until November or December - but we suspect that the millions who are members of the ‘boomer’ generation are having a difficult time keeping up, and an even more difficult time rationalizing why they should try to keep up.

   And it is not just the PBA that is causing the boomers heartburn. We had a nice conversation with USBC Public Relations Director Jason Overstreet recently. Jason responded to an email we sent to new USBC Executive Director Stu Upson asking for his opinion about the USBC and PBA taping events to air weeks or months later.

   As you will read in the BNN Interview in this issue, Upson and new BPAA Executive Director Steve Johnson have backgrounds in Sports & Entertainment industries, so we were hoping for a fresh take on an issue that has been troubling bowling journalists and fans for a few years now.

   As it turned out, Upson was traveling, and he probably has not had time to study the issue, so he asked Jason to answer. Jason, who we like very much and have a lot of respect for, gave us the ‘company’ answer "USBC is comfortable with the timing and content of its communications involving events taped for future broadcast."

   What we were looking for was an honest opinion from someone who has not been involved in this relatively new practice of delayed bowling broadcasts, and since Upson doesn’t have any bowling baggage, we thought he might give us a fresh look at what we believe is a problem for bowling as a sport, and a huge problem for those of us involved in print journalism.

   After talking with Jason, we are still not sure that USBC, or the PBA for that matter, understands how their decisions and actions affect not only our business, but also hundreds of thousands of our readers, and their customers.

   While they don’t demand it, the bowling groups putting the events on TV either drop hints that they would like us not to print the results before the shows air on TV, or they inadvertently make it difficult for us to get the complete results that we normally publish.

   In effect, they are asking us to change a basic principle of print journalism – the obligation to report news when it happens. They are asking us to defer to television, and that just doesn’t sit well with most editors and publishers.

   Another missed opportunity is that the PBA and USBC have not yet chosen to support the Bowling News Network, an organization that has the ability to get their message out to hundreds of thousands of grassroots bowlers. BNN papers like the one you are reading now, go directly to bowlers – USBC members, casual bowlers, and PBA fans.

   And if we (editors and publishers) are sometimes confused about how to handle the problem, there must be millions of fans that don’t have a clue what is going on. Our fear is that they will simply ‘tune out.’ – They will either stop reading our papers for the results, or they will not watch the TV shows because it is "old news."

   I gave Jason Overstreet a specific example of the problem. In a recent issue of a local bowling paper, there was a press release on page 4 with the headline "U.S. Women’s Open returns to ESPN." The story was about how Tammy Boomershine would be making her attempt to win the biggest tournament in women’s bowling after being away from top-level competition for many years. A very nice story about Tammy.

   But here’s the problem – in the same issue of the weekly paper, on page 11, was the headline "Boomershine wins BWAA August Bowler of the Month," and the story was about Tammy winning the U. S. Women’s Open to earn the award.

   There are two problems with this: 1. Whoever wrote the press release about Boomershine ‘trying ‘ to win the US Open knew that she had already won it when they wrote the article. (It must be nice to have a crystal ball.) And 2. Any bowling fan who read the paper who was looking forward to watching the TV show to find out who won found out who won because the event actually happened more than a month earlier.

   We had to laugh when we read a recent item in cyberspace from a prominent magazine editor that said (to paraphrase) that the magazine would publish the results of the PBA World Series in its October issue before the TV Shows aired, but they would do it in such a way that fans would not have to read the results if they didn’t want to.

   WHAT?!

   Did they actually think that any bowling fan with the results in their hand would be able to resist the temptation to look at them? We thought, how would they do this? Would they print a roadblock on a page and say "Don’t Turn the Page?!" We later found out that they were considering having a section with a piece of tape on it so the reader didn’t accidentally stumble onto the results, but that plan fell through from lack of sponsorship or too much cost for the special printing function. Still, who could resist tearing off that tape?

   Ridiculous.

   Our concern is this - that while bowling may be a part of the Sports & Entertainment industry, because of these questionable practices, it is becoming more entertainment than sport. True sports fans want to see events live, as they happen, and if a show has to be taped, it should air as soon as possible after the taping – the next day, or within a week – not months later. If this means only major events are televised, so be it.

   We have heard a few bowling officials blame this problem on television executives, saying things like ‘ESPN or CBS tells us what we have to do.’ We don’t buy it – the days of getting big money from cable or network TV are over, and while the TV people do have input, the final decision about when and how a show is aired is made by bowling officials, as it should be; after all, they are the ones paying for the time.

   There are other issues surrounding this practice, such as the possibility of injury to a player (this actually happened with Amleto Monacelli during the WSOB) but the best reason to stop this insanity is simply that it diminishes the sport.

   And it is causing fine bowling publications like the one you are reading right now to question why they are in the bowling news business.
©2004 Freesitedesigner.com