I have thought the same.  The winner should get 20,000....at least.

Cav

Entries were less than 1/2 the price of a regular event, so the prize fund is about 1/2 of the regular tournaments.  This summer swing is an extra 4 events that give the players extra chances to make money.  I bet most players are happier with this format than the gimmick summer series events.  They also put all the events in 1 area and over 10-12 days to help reduce the expenses of traveling for 4 weeks from city to city.

If you ran a business, would the PBA really be that high on your list of sports you would want to sponsor?

Listen guys, heres the real problem with bowling... There is no advertising and NO MONEY at all in it.

Im not the smartest man ever but I really think the PBA needs to find a Millionare, to invest money into it and it would ultimately create a level that bowling has never seen in todays society. I mean someone willing to gaurentee a Million $ first place prize. This would have such a vast effect on bowling you wouldnt believe. People would come out of the wood work to compete for such an amount. Youre average Joe league bowler would go from bowling 5 games a week to 50 to try to live the dream as anyone else would. You have to look at the backend effect of any investment and right now, theres just no reason for anyone to want to compete with the small prize funds etc.

Does anyone else agree with what Ive said?

The PBA and the USBC are jokes. Soon it will be called Kegel Pro Bowling. AMF balls cant be used in PBA competition because they didnt pay the shake down money that the PBA demanded. EVERY ball company should stop paying this ransom money. All management of the PBA should be fired....what have they done? Nothing! Soon bowling at the pro level will be non existent. My local tournaments have a bigger payout then most regional tournys with 1/4 of the entry fee. The sport needs to go back to basics like it was in the 60's and 70's...NOT 50 different kegel oil patterns etc.... and these ball companies....each new ball "more back end snap, more continuous hook..." At this point the ball should be hooking into the next lane.   

Gosh if only some millionaire had bought the PBA and invested millions...maybe someone with ties to Microsoft....hhmm....didn't that happen about 12 years ago?  Didn't it fail miserably when they propped the prize funds up with artificial money?

The cough isn't why you're sick....it's the virus.

The PBA isn't the illness....it's bowling as a sport.

I'll keep this as short as I can....it's not the "sport"....

It's society....

We work later than we did 40 years ago when bowling was at its peak.  We work longer hours....we have longer commutes....people don't want to commit 4 hrs per week for 9 months to something that is going to keep them out even later.

Bowling was always the blue collar game....now the blue collar society is pretty much gone.

Sorry I am late to the party here. I think you have all missed the real reason for the decline of bowling:
 
People are changing. Part of it is as Russell says, people working more, living further away from those jobs because the housing markets went so high. Then we had 2008, people are out of jobs, people are underemployed, not making the same amount of money they used to. Something has to give and usually it's recreational sports like Bowling. The other thing is people are getting older, the Baby Boomers who were the large influx of ABC/USBC members are getting older. dropping out of the list as they can't compete anymore. And the next generation of bowlers, the youth, have more things to take up their time then ever before. Soccer is more popular than ever in the US. You have so many other activties both outside and inside of the house. Fringe sports are growing, look at the growth of MMA, the growth of golf, etc. Now throw in Playstation, iPad, Xbox360, the growth of the internet and all it brings....the list goes on and on. Where does bowling fit into this? It doesn't. ESPN had a list of the top earners in every sport (the only one I can find is from 2011), Men's Bowling (and this was a good year, when WRW JR earned $152K) came in 36th out 41 sports (Women's bowling was 41st, another sad commentary). What was ahead of bowling....Squash, Professional Eating, Racquetball and even Sumo Wrestling. Joey Chesnut made $218.5K in 2010 for stuffing hot dogs in his face.....and we wonder why bowling can't find sponsors. Bowling is caught in the endless destructive cycle.....maybe if you offered more money for winning, you could get more attention and get more sponsors...but you can't give more money for winning unless you attract more sponsors.
 
Also, bowling needs to find a new home other than ESPN. ESPN love bowling because it can put it on against the NFL every week, and get better ratings than anything else it can put there. But it's not going to pay for bowling to get a 1 share or whatever it is either. With the proliferation of Network Sports Networks (NBCSport Network, Fox Sports 1, etc) bowling should be able to find a home where it can get a better time slot and see if it can thrive a little. Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part, but it is something that should be investigated.