There is no mismanagement Crash, for that to happen, you need management, which the ABC or USBC has not had for years. But they do have people with plenty of wallpaper.
Yes, it's true. The ABC/USBC is just that bad...it's all their fault: the downturn in bowling, they caused the economic crash in 2008, they blew up the Challenger, they shot Kennedy, they caused WWII, they caused WWI, they started the Great Depression and lastly they are the cause of the heartbreak of psoriasis. Did I miss anything?!?
If you think my first paragraph sounds stupid, and yet you are one of the people blaming the USBC/ABC for all that is wrong with bowling, you sound just as stupid. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying the USBC/ABC is doing a perfect job, or even that they are doing a good job, but they are not the sole cause for where bowling is today. And they have nothing to do with the PBA, so how in the hell can the cause the issues the PBA has today? Stop and think about what you are saying when you say the it's the USBC's fault. That means you must actually think there is a person, or a group of people out there, that if they were in charge of bowling they would have stopped the decline of bowling, stopped all the members leaving and made bowling today like it used to be in the old days. Do you really believe that?? And what makes you think, if there really were these people out there, that they would put their talent to use by saving bowling? Would you? Or would you take that talent to any number of corporations out there that would give a 6, 7, or more figure salary to use those talents?
Bowling has declined for many reasons. One is the popularity of other sports, other passtimes like soccor, that draw the youth away from our sport. Another is the fact that each dollar a person makes has to go further and further (and that started in the late 70's, early 80's), so bowling became something that had to be sacrificed in some people's budget. Still another is the fact that jobs are harder to find and people are working farther away from home, again this isn't new, even in the early 2000's there were stories from the SF area of people living hundreds of miles from there jobs due to the price of houses being too high, and now because people can't afford to sell the house they have. What about the centers, how many centers out there began catering to the open bowler, in fact there are centers now that don't even have leagues anymore, they are just entertainment destinations. Did the USBC have anything to do with that? How did the USBC drive away advertisers from the PBA. As the 18-35 yr old demographic became the focal point of advertisers, did the USBC change the demographics of the bowling watching public to skew away from that? Granted, if the USBC could have kept membership levels from decreasing, one could argue that the demographics of bowling may be lower, but enough to satisfy the advertisers, I doubt it.
This thread is titled Opinions, and while this may not be what they had in mind, it is certainly my opinion. Instead of saying blanket statements like the one I quoted here, how about we as bowlers come up with ways to help change the tide? Instead of complaining, we help. We work with our local associations to make an awards program better than what the USBC had. You work with your centers to come up with leagues and then take the time to call your fellow bowlers to get them interested. Do things in your local community to get bowling going. Talk with your local center(s) to do some promotions for leagues, get a local television or radio station to cover it.....do anything other than come on a website and complain. And if you don't have time to do any of this....then you should realize that the USBC isn't the problem (they may not be the solution either), we are, and we need to stop blaming it on someone else.
