PBA Commissioner Steve Miller says the Senior Tour will make a big comeback next year with the addition of 11 tournaments and more televised final events on ESPN2.
"The PWBA Tour will be contracting a couple of stops in the future and we will substitute PBA Senior Tour coverage in those timeslots when they do," Miller said.
PWBA President John Falzone responded to Miller's comments by saying that the women's tour will not contract or drop any stops this year.
"We will not be dropping any stops this year but we will be cutting back the size of our tour in 2003 by dropping some stops and perhaps then the seniors will televise their finals." Falzone added that the PWBA competed with the PBA Seniors and wheelchair bowlers in the Roll and Bowl Tournament involving all three that was televised from Mesa, Ariz., on ESPN2.
"One championship match was all ESPN2 had time for in their hour slot, so you saw a title match of six bowlers with two teams of three where the best of the two final teams was the winner consisting of one PWBA bowler combined with one senior and one wheelchair competitor."
Miller says the long hiatus the PBA Tour had stalled its momentum but he figures advertisers will respond in a positive way when the Tour returns to ESPN. He noted the demographics for the PBA still point to the older generation, but the tour is making inroads to attracting the mythical yet much coveted 18-55 age group for advertisers. Sponsors have been shying away from the PBA Tour because they claim that attracting older viewers is not enough to sell their products. With the nation's recent money crunch, seniors often buy products which give them the most for their money, similar to the rest of us, but strangely, prejudicial advertisers think their money isn't good enough.
Miller mentioned that the PBA Tour looks forward to having more arena and outdoor finals for future tournament stops, but the dates and telecast times for these tourneys are not yet available.
Randy Pedersen returns to the PBA Tour as color analyst along with sideline reporter Leslie Gudel. Dave Ryan is the new play-by-play commentator, replacing Ron Thulin, who has joined TBS as a NCAA Football announcer. Ryan has experience as a commentator in other sports, including the broadcast of his own bowling radio show as a student at Syracuse University. He later commentated the Little League World Series, NCAA Football, and the NHL for ESPN.
"Dave is really the highly regarded young announcer that we hope to bring along with the ever-increasing ratings of the PBA on ESPN," Miller said. "We will be presenting a packaged statistical look for the viewers at what strikes and spares mean and how good professional bowlers really are."
The PBA has 20 tournament stops scheduled for 2002-03. They began Oct. 13, and there are two weeks off in December for the holidays. The telecasts feature a uniform look with a respective logo and slogan of "Only one can win" and "Our fans love it when we strike."
Commissioner Miller says he is satisfied with the timeslot assigned to the PBA by ESPN, even though it runs directly against the schedule of the NFL each Sunday that outdraws it an average of 28-to-1 in ratings shares.
"We had long discussions about that slot, and we concluded that the consistency and continuity with what we call 'appointment TV' overshadows the fact that we are opposite the NFL. There's no question that it's difficult to go against the National Football League, but it's a cluttered sports schedule because if you try to be in another slot, you could run into basketball or hockey, so that fact entered into our thinking. There will be a re-broadcast schedule which we will be issuing soon to check your listings. Also, the second way to do it and give us a leg up is the webcast, and that way fans can either see it on TV or the computer website either the first time or in replays, so we feel it is totally covered by both. You can then watch both the PBA and the NFL when it best fits your schedule."