world-bowling-group-to-explore-alternative-scoring system
- Thread starter Mistagear
- Start date
Mistagear
www.xgamesbowling.com
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your interest, no and not really.
I have spoken recently to Andrew, as has Belmo on this.
Whilst Andrew is aware of the basic match rules, I am fairly certain he would not yet have grasped all the implications behind those rules nor understand the potential to substantially alter how the world views Bowling as a sport (not recreation)
Apparently Andrew does have a family member who does play some XGB as part of a weekly gathering in Shellharbour, therefore he is aware of the basics of the system.
Once you release the shackles associated with thinking only inside the square box, through study, you can become aware how other sports create the respect, desire and dedication which attracts large numbers of spectators and also additional competitors.
Bowling might finally be starting to realize the critical importance that fans play in the composition of modern sports.
I've discovered there are variations on a single basic recipe, which different sports practice to become successful in modern day. Bowling, whilst having huge advantages in attracting entry level participants, has failed to follow these simple steps in structuring the entire sport. This has resulted in a 40 year downtrend in Bowling's popularity worldwide and will undoubtedly continue unless the whole sport is restructured.
Thanks for your interest, no and not really.
I have spoken recently to Andrew, as has Belmo on this.
Whilst Andrew is aware of the basic match rules, I am fairly certain he would not yet have grasped all the implications behind those rules nor understand the potential to substantially alter how the world views Bowling as a sport (not recreation)
Apparently Andrew does have a family member who does play some XGB as part of a weekly gathering in Shellharbour, therefore he is aware of the basics of the system.
Once you release the shackles associated with thinking only inside the square box, through study, you can become aware how other sports create the respect, desire and dedication which attracts large numbers of spectators and also additional competitors.
Bowling might finally be starting to realize the critical importance that fans play in the composition of modern sports.
I've discovered there are variations on a single basic recipe, which different sports practice to become successful in modern day. Bowling, whilst having huge advantages in attracting entry level participants, has failed to follow these simple steps in structuring the entire sport. This has resulted in a 40 year downtrend in Bowling's popularity worldwide and will undoubtedly continue unless the whole sport is restructured.
Hi Peter,
This is a great oportunity for change and to see your idea/concept pushed forward. It is exciting for the sport, a real chance to setup this great sport for another 50 years. I agree we should think outside the box, the format for social play should also work well with most centres offering lane higher for 3 hours and not being based on number of games played. Really the frame work is there, we just need the acceptance to change.
Hopefully we can get Andrew to have a crack this Friday if were are still on for Shellharbour!
This is a great oportunity for change and to see your idea/concept pushed forward. It is exciting for the sport, a real chance to setup this great sport for another 50 years. I agree we should think outside the box, the format for social play should also work well with most centres offering lane higher for 3 hours and not being based on number of games played. Really the frame work is there, we just need the acceptance to change.
Hopefully we can get Andrew to have a crack this Friday if were are still on for Shellharbour!
jimcross
Active Member
Re-reading that World Bowling artical / news release again, it seems to me that the reasons they put forth are not only very valid, in my opinion, but remarkably similar to what Pete has been saying all along. Projected forward, and assuming success in bringing bowling back to something like it's former glory, then everyone in the bowling industry will benifit, including financially.
Pete, trying to promote his vision, it appears to me quite selflessly, for the good of the sport he obviously loves, has invested a great deal of time and effort into this. He's also done a lot of travel in Australia, and actually put up prizemoney a couple of times. All this must have cost him a motsa ! On top of that, recently, he went to America to promote his idea, and the reasons that 'World Bowling' advances for this enquiry sound remarkably like that which Peter has been saying.
Should this eventually go forward, using a system similar to ( or based on ) Peter's X Game Bowling, and the industry and the sport thrives, and everyone's financial returns get a boost as well - How does Peter get a financial return ? Surely he would deserve one ?
Pete, trying to promote his vision, it appears to me quite selflessly, for the good of the sport he obviously loves, has invested a great deal of time and effort into this. He's also done a lot of travel in Australia, and actually put up prizemoney a couple of times. All this must have cost him a motsa ! On top of that, recently, he went to America to promote his idea, and the reasons that 'World Bowling' advances for this enquiry sound remarkably like that which Peter has been saying.
Should this eventually go forward, using a system similar to ( or based on ) Peter's X Game Bowling, and the industry and the sport thrives, and everyone's financial returns get a boost as well - How does Peter get a financial return ? Surely he would deserve one ?
Mistagear
www.xgamesbowling.com
An end to the perfect 300? Hungry to be in Olympics, World Bowling eyes radical overhaul
By ERIC TALMADGE
Associated PressPosted: September 24, 2014 - 10:04 am
Last Updated: September 24, 2014 - 10:06 am
By ERIC TALMADGE
Associated PressPosted: September 24, 2014 - 10:04 am
Last Updated: September 24, 2014 - 10:06 am
INCHEON, South Korea — About a month and a half ago, Kevin Dornberger and his Swedish friend Christer Jonsson were watching a tournament in Hong Kong. They made it through most of the afternoon before Jonsson, the secretary general of the World Tenpin Bowling Association, looked at Dornberger, the president of World Bowling.
"This is boring," he said.
Dornberger — who has bowled since he was eight, had a 40-plus-year competitive career, has rolled 16 perfect 300 games and who now heads the sport's international governing body — nodded his head emphatically.
"I've watched more world championships competitions than anyone in the world," Dornberger told The Associated Press on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asian Games bowling competition in Incheon, South Korea. "And it has occurred to me that the people who say we are boring have a point."
Dornberger's solution, which he wants to see implemented by the 2016 World Championships in Doha, Qatar is a radical overhaul of the very heart of the sport — its complicated, but to bowlers beloved, scoring system.
What he would like to see is an arrangement similar to the soccer World Cup that would pit players against each other in a group format culminating in finals. Scoring, possibly only in the finals, could be simplified into a frame-by-frame showdown. The player winning the frame would get one point. Any player getting to six points would automatically be the winner, and that would be the end of it.
Another radical suggestion being considered is to make every strike count for 30 points, no matter what the next ball is. Spares would count for 20. That would make the math a lot easier, but retain the 300 as the perfect score for a game — a tradition many bowlers would be very unhappy to see vanish.
"I'm open to anything because I love our sport," Dornberger said. "I love tradition, but it's vital that we become an Olympic sport. If we have to be dragged into the 21st century to do that, I'm ok with that."
Here's how bowling currently works:
Each game is broken down into 10 frames. If a bowler rolls a strike, that counts for the 10 pins knocked down in that throw, plus the pins knocked down in the next two throws. If the bowler fails to knock down all the pins on the first throw, there's another chance. If the bowler knocks over the remaining pins, that's called a spare, and it counts for the 10, plus however many pins that bowler knocks down in the next throw. If the bowler fails to get a strike or a spare, the score for the first frame is registered as however many pins are knocked down in the first two attempts.
Simple enough, right?
Dornberger and a lot of people trying to figure out how to keep sport bowling out of the gutter don't think so.
At big international competitions, where dozens of bowlers are playing at the same time and the winners are determined by cumulative scores, not finals, it's hard for spectators to get emotionally involved because no one knows the winners until the whole day's competition is over.
"It took 11 1/2 hours to complete the two rounds of play today," said Bill Hoffman, a five-time world champion and Hall of Fame bowler who is coaching Hong Kong's team at the Asian Games. "That is way too long for climaxes."
Hoffman said the changes would likely face the most opposition from the 10 or 15 players who are at the top of the world standings, since the system is working for them the way it is. But he added that he thinks major changes are required to attract spectators and sponsors and win the backing of the International Olympic Committee.
"I think we will see change," he said. "I think the industry in general knows the need for change so that we are more relevant on popular culture again."
Mike Seymour, an Australian who is the World Tenpin Bowling Association's vice president, said a working group is scheduled to make four or five proposals at an executive board meeting in December in Abu Dhabi.
Seymour said top-level bowling could soon start to look more like tennis. With each game shorter, finals could be played in a best-out-of three format. But he acknowledged that, even for supporters of the overhaul, letting go of the magical 300 is hard to imagine.
"Maybe for the average league-type player a few more years down the track if the 30-point strike system has been established and proven that might take over," he said. "I don't like banishing the old 300. I'm a traditionalist and I've been around for a long time in this sport. I can't see it being banished forever, maybe just a change at the top end."
Mistagear
www.xgamesbowling.com
WTBA has a totally "blinkers on" view. Their fixation to see themselves as part of the Olympic prestige is limiting their views to a top only fix. This will not save bowling simply because it becomes part of the Olympic movement.
A more sustainable view would be to implement a plan to changed the psychological perception of bowling for the bulk of participants in the sport, a bottom up solution.(the 99% of total numbers, not the top 1%). If you do that correctly, you'll also achieve the Olympic goal as part of a better total solution anyhow.
You change the way every-day competitors and the community at large see's bowling "the Sport" and create a structure of competition which is not possible for a single Bowling Centre to create. This way, Bowling "the Sport" becomes an essential part of all Bowling Business' equation, so organizations like TBA become part of the solution, rather than a non essential addition.
I've spent a large amount of time comparing the psychological drivers between sport to sport and I now know why the general public do not consider Bowling a real sport. I also know why Mr Jonsson and Mr Dornberger think Bowling at world class level is boring.
The WTBA timeframe to decide a course of change is insufficient for members of their committee starting from scratch to reasonably understand the drivers behind the changes required.
As a true believer in our sport, I fear what the result will be
A more sustainable view would be to implement a plan to changed the psychological perception of bowling for the bulk of participants in the sport, a bottom up solution.(the 99% of total numbers, not the top 1%). If you do that correctly, you'll also achieve the Olympic goal as part of a better total solution anyhow.
You change the way every-day competitors and the community at large see's bowling "the Sport" and create a structure of competition which is not possible for a single Bowling Centre to create. This way, Bowling "the Sport" becomes an essential part of all Bowling Business' equation, so organizations like TBA become part of the solution, rather than a non essential addition.
I've spent a large amount of time comparing the psychological drivers between sport to sport and I now know why the general public do not consider Bowling a real sport. I also know why Mr Jonsson and Mr Dornberger think Bowling at world class level is boring.
The WTBA timeframe to decide a course of change is insufficient for members of their committee starting from scratch to reasonably understand the drivers behind the changes required.
As a true believer in our sport, I fear what the result will be
GraftonGez
Member
Want to bring integrity back to Bowling then I say ban Reactive bowling balls, I love them but I am under no illusion that Reactive Bowling balls make a me a better bowler then what my skill level would suggest and I also see Mike Machuga is running a Plastic Ball(pancake weight block) Tourney in the states, I really like what Chugs is doing over there http://allevents.in/erie/chugas-tournament/1503476426587619#
GraftonGez
Member
This might explain the anti 2 handed approach (note: I have nothing against 2 Handers, it is a hard style) http://www.machugabowling.com/blog/index.php/archives/14 Interesting read
jimcross
Active Member
Big fan of two handlers I see. Pretty aggressive way to advertise a tournament but each to their own
Eh ? What am I missing ?
Toon
OWN IT!
Jim, the tournament won't allow any 2 handed bowlers.
Regarding, the whole banning reactives. It will never happen, just like PGA won't ban ridiculous drivers and and advanced iron sets.
Like, with golf. The only solution is separating the men from the boys with harder patterns, heavier pins, more oil.
The game is dying and I don't honestly see a way back. I love this game as much as anyone can but it's not going back to the 60's or 80's.
We might as well make the game hard again and go out like men..or women.
I would love to have nothing more available than a Urethane ball and heavy oil but it's just not realistic.
Regarding, the whole banning reactives. It will never happen, just like PGA won't ban ridiculous drivers and and advanced iron sets.
Like, with golf. The only solution is separating the men from the boys with harder patterns, heavier pins, more oil.
The game is dying and I don't honestly see a way back. I love this game as much as anyone can but it's not going back to the 60's or 80's.
We might as well make the game hard again and go out like men..or women.
I would love to have nothing more available than a Urethane ball and heavy oil but it's just not realistic.
Mistagear
www.xgamesbowling.com
It's not about the equipment or how you throw it. It's not even about making it back to what was, the problem already existed when bowling became available to the masses through automatic pinspotters.
The fact that bowling was so much fun and popular, meant the originators of ABC had no need to look at how a sport should be structured.
Seeds of the demise of our sport began back on the very first day when Bowling first became popular and formal competition began.
If less numbers had been lining up to turn a passtime into a sport, far greater regard as to how the sport should be structured, would have resulted in a a considerably better sport
steve jones
Active Member
I've met Dornberger a few times - I think some years back [many in fact] he brought a group of US junior bowlers to Gosford for the nationals - I also met him at ABC headquarters a few times and socially as well. He is a dedicated bowling man no doubt about it. But Kevin must be smoking the wrong stuff if he seriously thinks bowling has a snowballs chance in hell of getting to IOC medal status.
The Olympic horse has well and truly bolted for this sport.
Bowling rejected a chance to buy it's way into medal contention long term in 1988. At the time the logic was sound as to why it was not the right path to go down - with 20/20 hindsight that negative decision was critical as well as effectively terminal for the sport.
After the 88 rejection the next process was years of lobbying IOC members and senior decision makers - this process cost countless $millions - mostly [but not exclusively] coming from Brunswick Corp.
The Brunswick horse has also bolted.
Unless Dornberger has a sizable and extremely patient financial benefactor then bowling's chances are zip. I'm betting he doesn't.
Finally, Mistagear - if the WTBA indeed has a "fixation" for IOC recognition then you are 100% correct - they are blinded by an impossible dream - and if such nonsense comes at the expense of reasonable alternatives that will really help the sport - then they have lost control of their collective senses.
The Olympic horse has well and truly bolted for this sport.
Bowling rejected a chance to buy it's way into medal contention long term in 1988. At the time the logic was sound as to why it was not the right path to go down - with 20/20 hindsight that negative decision was critical as well as effectively terminal for the sport.
After the 88 rejection the next process was years of lobbying IOC members and senior decision makers - this process cost countless $millions - mostly [but not exclusively] coming from Brunswick Corp.
The Brunswick horse has also bolted.
Unless Dornberger has a sizable and extremely patient financial benefactor then bowling's chances are zip. I'm betting he doesn't.
Finally, Mistagear - if the WTBA indeed has a "fixation" for IOC recognition then you are 100% correct - they are blinded by an impossible dream - and if such nonsense comes at the expense of reasonable alternatives that will really help the sport - then they have lost control of their collective senses.
