The PBA Tour has been telecast on all three major commercial networks over the past 20 years, including the Fall Tour, which aired on CBS in 1979 and on NBC from 1988-91. It also has appeared regularly on ESPN, the Total Cable Sports Network, Prime Sports cable network, and more recently on Fox Sports Net on a very limited basis.
The Fox Network has shown the least interest in televising the PBA Tour or bowling tournaments in general. Fox Sports producer Andy Kendall, who previously was with CBS Sports for several years and wishes the PBA well on his former network, shed some light on why his current network feels this way about bowling.
"You have to take a look at the bowling numbers throughout the United States, and it’s now basically delegated to late night fun fantasy time," Kendall said. "It’s not a good sport for television right now because there are not enough identifiable heroes in the sport. What bowling has to do is step back and take a look at the franchise and say, "Let’s promote those people and make them stars. Once you do that again, people will be interested because it’s a very difficult sport to promote on television."
Kendall is the former producer of "Bowling for Dollars" and frequently bowled as a kid. He adds that PBA needs to promote itself everywhere and not just during its own televised tournaments. Television bowling advertises several sports coming up after the tournament, but when those sports air, you seldom hear a word in exchange about upcoming bowling tournaments or promotions of bowling’s stars.
If bowling turned around the promotional problems that Kendall mentioned, Fox may have an interest in televising bowling more often in the future.
The PBA experienced promotional problems recently with ESPN in scheduling times and dates for bowling tournaments. A glaring example of this was the STORM Flagship Open in Erie, Pa. Bowling writers and others concerned with scheduling received a PBA Winter Tour schedule at the beginning of the year which said the STORM event would be televised live by ESPN2 instead of ESPN on Feb. 28 from 4-5:30 p.m. It seemed like a thoughtful gesture at the time by ESPN schedulers to actually allow bowling fans to watch their heroes in live competition.
However, shortly before the telecast would have occurred, the PBA issued a sudden schedule change announcement from ESPN stating that ESPN2 would not carry the STORM event live but instead would air the broadcast twice on a tape delayed basis on March 1 and March 3. No reason was given for this unprecedented schedule change by ESPN for a PBA tournament.
Can you remember what ESPN2 did show Feb. 28 from 4-5:30 p.m.? A forgettable professional boxing match from 20 years ago!
That’s right, bowling fans: In the biggest insult yet to the intelligence of bowling fans and writers who listed the original time and date as a service to the public, live coverage of the STORM Flagship Open was bumped by film of a 20-year-old boxing match. This kind of programming is commonly known in the broadcasting business as "filler" or programming that airs when nothing else better is available.
Apparently, ESPN officials feel that bowling fans are better served on a tape-delayed basis.
BWAA member Richard Kolb is a syndicated columnist.