I am sure the businessmen would prefer that it be that easy but it is not. Incentives and competitive balance in the game are what is needed not pathetic attempts to shame bowlers into compliance with what might be more profitable. Keep dreaming and please make no attempt to wake up and join the rest of us in the real world. Ignoring the problem entirely is not the best way to support bowling as a sport. Making it less profitable for the proprietor to not support bowling as a sport is the only way to support bowling as a sport at this point in time. It will be the bowlers who restore credibility, not the USBC. It is just a matter of time and all we must do is keep on doing what we have been doing.
Skullpants, I'm assuming your solution is to have USBC put in a tougher lane conditioning rule to bring about averages that are closer together for competition. The next step which you seem to avoid is just what kind of toughness you propose, based on what, the method of enforcement and penalties for non compliance?
For me it is all about the system we have in place that needs to be sacked and something new put in its place. I think in virtually every local in this land there are men and women who bowl and could be valuable volunteers, men and women with ideas but unable to do either because we have what is pretty much a closed club system at local levels where the same men and women serve for decades, reelected yearly with no opposition and 'do it all'. It is very, very difficult for men and women who choose not to be elected to office to offer their services, very, very difficult for men and women with ideas to get the opportunity to try them out, very, very difficult to persuade those serving in the present system to form bowling councils at local levels where the men, women, youth, bowling centers, other for profits who do business in bowling centers to meet, plan, jointly finance and implement programs of mutual value.
For some reason there is this feeling that in bowling fragmentation is better, that the men, women and youth I describe are not in bowling and leadership roles are in the hands of mostly white, mostly aaarp eligibles because they are the only ones willing to serve.
Don Gates
No Don my plan is simply to motivate the businessman to want credibility by taking away the only thing that he really cares about until his perspective changes. USBC is completely powerless and should be treated as such until such time as they prove themselves capable of real leadership.
How do you go about sacking and replacing a worthless system Don? Do you sack and replace it by suggesting alternate means of revenue so that it may just survive while it baby steps its way to who knows what? I think a better way might be to crush it like a bug with revolutionary ideas like my "drive the sheep over the cliff" theory.
Fragmentation will have to do until something better comes along and by that I do not mean your visions of a businessmans utopia. If you truely want unity you must stop being so inflexible. Offer value and the product will sell itself, but for you to expect everyone to just support what bowling has become because you like it that way is unrealistic. We both want changes. You pursue change your way and I'll pursue change my way. Casualties are acceptable in my opinion.
You seem to think that better bowlers should just voluntarily segregate themselves from the main population and continue to pay premium prices while competing in smaller fields, essentially tougher competition at the same or higher costs with a smaller purse. Why? So the bowling industry can grow and produce more profits and USBC can survive to continue to serve the businessman. Don this may come as a surprise to you but as much as you might like that idea it can never work because the costs have become too high for those smaller fields to be viable. If you have a solution to that problem then it might be possible to end fragmentation, but first you would have to have the ability to look objectively at what is causing the problem. We cannot unite to work on what you want and just ignore everything else. That is not how unity works.
Skullpants, in other words you have no plan, just a wish list. I don't remember a time when scratch bowlers did not compete in smaller fields and do remember a time when scratch bowlers were proud of that distinction and competed with each other, not seeking out 'sheep' to fleece as apparently is your present joy. Of course, being anonymous you can say anything you want and have the feeling if you were to reveal your name and the center you bowl in I would find much of what you claim to be so much hooey.
It is far from a my way only plan but I do have thoughts that I would like to contribute if Jeff Boje was to consider inviting men and women with ideas on various topics to meet and talk about them in round table discussions.
I think junior bowling needs to be reworked with something new introduced as an option, not forcing existing programs to disband. A new way of doing things that keeps entry level juniors doing something other than bowling in a league until they have the basics down pat (good entry level coaching and a gathering for better coaching for the fewer in number who want to treat bowling as sport rather than just a recreation), a system that offers a variety of activities that begin just at house level for entry level and lower average juniors and becomes richer and farther reaching as skill levels increase, national champions declared through local, state and regional qualifiers for the very best who hopefully are much larger in number, become adult bowlers eager to participate in a rich number of activities for scratch men and women adult bowlers. I also think this new program needs to be controlled and treated as a franchise with income from centers based on the success of the new program.
I think asking bowling centers for up front money is always going to be a tough sell and think coming up with good ideas for new business that is franchised, produces ongoing income based on success, has a better chance of success, all of it on the internet for some linking of activities and honesty in reporting for income purposes.
There is no way for anything remotely resembling what I suggest to come about in anything more than baby steps taking years and years to bear fruit but it could eventually make a difference for the good while I don't think 'trash and burn' will do much more than put an earlier end for USBC than the end that may not be all that many years away if fragmentation continues with an attitude that what is good for bowling center owners is not good for bowlers, that bowling center owners interested in making a good living do not think they should do that by providing centers men, women, youth enjoy bowling in, supporting activities they enjoy participating in, and find the costs well worth what they are paying.
No Don I do have a plan, and it is currently in progress. You simply do not wish to acknowledge it because you fear what it will eventually create. The plan is to continue to drive the sheep over the cliff until the businessmen suffer enough losses to want to allow a governing body (not necessarily USBC) to define better parameters that will restore credibility and bring back the balance to the game that will allow it to grow through healthy competition. Dismiss my plan as hooey if you wish because I do not need or crave your acknowledgement to accomplish my goals.
Many of us have thoughts that we would like to contribute, and I feel that this very forum is the ideal environment for such discussions, but for some reason bowling's leaders and would be leaders seem to prefer more private arenas. Perhaps it is because they do not wish to have their thoughts placed under close scruitiny.
Do what you want with junior bowling. Prepare them well because when they reach the age of 21 they are fair game to the predator.
No one is asking centers for anything. We are simply playing the game the way that it is allowed to be played under the unbrella of the current administration. I think things could be much better, but if not then this it what we must learn to live with. You have often stated that local associations need to have a working relationship with the businessmen that is not adversarial. There are two sides to that coin. This can only be possible when the businessman views this relationship as something other than let's work together to grow my business, but it is up to you to solve any problems that do not fit in my agenda.
The survival of USBC is not the most important issue Don. The death of USBC might be the best way to end the fragmentation that you so loathe, so I really do not understand why you continue to proclaim that the survival of USBC is all important.
skullpants, while you may spend your Idletime as predator I don't think there is much future in it for you or bowling.
While I think it is important to have USBC survive it certainly is not for USBC as it is now to survive. If USBC remains mainly serving certified bowling, working through closed local association officer clubs it will certainly become less and less relevant as years go by.
While some will think it is not wise or possible I choose to think it is very possible to create a top to bottom completely new system that will better serve bowling, a system with the right people paying the bills, the right people in place to deal with things they are best able to deal with, a combination of bowling centers, other for profits who do business in bowling centers, men, women and youth interested in particular programs as volunteers meeting, planning, financing and implementing programs of mutual value at national levels and mirrored at local levels for support of national programs and programs of their own.
To try and do this sort of thing within the present fragmented, closed club system at local levels will never work and far too much time and resources have been wasted to accomodate that system at local levels when it would have been far better to just leave it alone and create a completely different division; ditto for the local junior bowling which does not work at all well.
As far as bowling goes I don't have much of a present Don, so I certainly do not fear what the future might bring.
Relevant to who Don? Relevent to bowlers? Relevent to golfers? Relevent to the olympic committee? I suspect that you mean relevent to the business owners. So what? Their busineses are becoming less relevent to our membership as well. The numbers have been indicating this since shortly after the scoring explosion began.
I think it is very possible as well, but the organization that I picture is very different from the one that you describe.
I suggest that you do just that so that you may come to realize the true value of that idea.
Don,
I think your constant drum beating for the "for profits" to foot the bills is naive at best. Sounds just like a bunch of Democrats hollering to tax corporations rather than the "little guy". In each instance it is the consumer who foots the bill as the costs are passed along in the form of price increases.
Skullpants, yep, I certainly do think it is important to have whatever happens in the future to be very good for the bottom lines of bowling center owners and other for profits who do business with bowlers and in bowling centers if it is to also be good for bowling and its bowlers, both competitive and recreation minded.
One of the most destructive things bowlers did to 'shoot themselves in the foot' was to demand and get low ball league and tournament prices when they were in a position of strength; low ball pricing that affected the bottom lines, affected the ability to staff well with well paid employees at both ends, set aside 'rainy day' funds, remodeling funds, marketing funds, etal that resulted in an increasing number of 'dungeons' that gradually went out of business, a situation now where even with good pricing the bowler numbers are so low that that are 'dungeons' that would not be 'dungeons' if the numbers were there but bowling is on a slippery downward slide of their own making that will be hard to stop.
With hindsight it is easy to see how things could have been done much differently during the growing years to make the present situation far better than it is. What bowling needs is good foresight, good planning and implementation so bowling and all its integers remain relevant competitors for the leisure dollars, recognition of its bowler athletes by the media as a sport for the 'few', an important 'few' that want that level of competition for bowling that can get it without forcing the equally important 'majority' to want that for themselves.
Bill, Do you really think Don will comprehend what you said, or accept it as a fact?
Buzz
Buzz: Bill, Do you really think Don will comprehend what you said, or accept it as a fact? Buzz
Skullpants and whiteoak continue to make logical and valid points, in my opinion, and I wholeheartedly agree with what they continue to say.
And perhaps I'll even agree with Don Gates (on this subject) sometime ... BUT ONLY IF HE WAKES UP FROM HIS DREAM.
prunenow: Bill, and that's how it should be, everyone who spends money in bowling should be contributing to the costs of promoting and servicing the game as a recreation and sport. Naturally that money is going to come from income the bowling centers and other for profits get from bowlers...You think the present system of having an even decreasing number of certified bowlers paying the bills? You think men, women, youth, bowling centers and other for profits who do business in bowling should continue to do their own thing, very little together because there is no mutual benefits in doing so? Don Gates
Bill, and that's how it should be, everyone who spends money in bowling should be contributing to the costs of promoting and servicing the game as a recreation and sport. Naturally that money is going to come from income the bowling centers and other for profits get from bowlers...You think the present system of having an even decreasing number of certified bowlers paying the bills? You think men, women, youth, bowling centers and other for profits who do business in bowling should continue to do their own thing, very little together because there is no mutual benefits in doing so? Don Gates
Don, Rethinking your previous posts, I must be missing a point, the above has a different ring than others, or am I not reading them correctly?
If a businessman is unhappy with his bottom line he should be asking himself, " Why are my customers not satisfied with the product that I am offering, and how can I find a way to offer them a product that they are willing to buy?" He most certainly should not be asking a non profit organization for an advertising subsidy so that he can continue to do buisness in a way that does not seem to be producing a product that many members of said organization want to buy.
