Eric Forkel sat down with tburg.wpengine.com‘s Dustin J. Markowitz and shared his brutally honest feelings on the current state of bowling. Discussing opinions that are claimed to be shared by many on the pro circuit, Eric talks about what bowling is failing at. Topics of discussion include the economy and it’s affect on bowling, the PBA and it’s struggle for survival and what needs to be done in order for bowling to thrive again. Be it the PBA cheapening the game, the seemingly negative influence of the two-handed bowler or even what keeps bowlers from coming out, Eric speaks his mind and tells it as he sees it.
PBA Millionaire Eric Forkel pulls no punches as he discusses his views on the PBA, the mindset of bowlers and the state of bowling in general.
I kind of agree with Eric somewhat. I don’t believe the economy has anything to do with state of bowling. Reason being, there are people who are not rich that do well when the economy is up or down. I do feel the people behind the PBA Tour have treated it too much as a business than as to help the sport grow. True, I didn’t like the King of Hill and Trick Shot bowling either. And I feel when they try the exempt bowlers status thing realing hurt the seasoned bowler who depended on the tour to make some money.
I see they’re planning on going back to the open field format again. That will help…but…they have to attract the sponsors. Why don’t the ball manufacturers step up and start helping the
PBA grow? Then when the Tour gets back on their feet the ball companies will reap the rewards of a strong PBA Tour.
But I do agree with his anology on the only way to kick start this sport on the local level is to hold more higher paying tournament with reasonable entry fees. This can be accomplished by educating these so called tournament directors on how to promote the sport not their wallets.
Tournament sponsors are not hard to find if you would just give them a good platform for their product. It will then become a business tax write off for some advertising venture. As long as these “so caled” tournament directors keep putting together these $100 enrtry fee to win $800 based on entries tournaments and end up paying only $500 to the winner and so on, thetrue tournament bowler will stop participating on a regular basis.
So, it’s not the economy hurting our sport, in my opinion, it’s the lack of platforms to showcase the bowlers bowling skills and make decent money at the same time.
As I said, this is just my opinion!!
jb
The PBA jumped the shark LONG before the economy tanked.