Columnist Dean Juipe: PBA Tour gives itself a make-over

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2001 | 10:23 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

In a recent M*A*S*H rerun the camp was aflutter after a bowling lane was set up and the competition for the championship was keen.

Perhaps many within today's viewing audience could have seen the show, which was ostensibly set during the Korean War, and said to themselves, "Yeah, that was bowling's heyday" referring to the sport's widespread popularity in the 1950s.

And they wouldn't have been too terribly wrong, although bowling remained a fixture on national TV into the 1970s. But by 1990 it was in decline and as recently as two years ago the Professional Bowlers Association Tour was one gutter ball away from bankruptcy.

It is now, however, in the midst of a transfusion that almost certainly will pay significant dividends for those with world-class ability. The PBA Tour was purchased last March by three men with connections to computer conglomerate Microsoft, and they immediately injected $5 million into paying off past debts and increasing tournament payoffs.

Bowlers on the tour, if not everywhere, are thankful.

"Everybody's up," 33-year-old Justin Hromek said Monday at the Orleans, where he and 90 of his PBA colleagues are taking part in the Orleans Casino Open that runs through Thursday.

"It's pretty exciting for all of us," Hromek said of the tour changing hands and having Chris Peters in the chief executive's seat. "Things like this take time, but the players are very optimistic.

"Long term, this has to be a real benefit."

Hromek was enthusiastic and it wasn't simply the result of his third-place finish a day earlier in the Silicon Valley Open in Daly City, Calif. The $7,000 he earned there isn't an astronomical sum for a nationally televised event, yet it pays the rent.

Pro bowlers, it can be argued, are like professional golfers without all the money. They're accessible, friendly and committed to promoting their sport.

"Everyone out here loves bowling," Hromek said. "It's the purest sport there is."

Hromek acknowledges the obvious when he says the PBA's image was once dated "because the age of the players was higher than in most other sports," but younger players and newer marketing concepts may broaden bowling's appeal.

"I think the idea now is to try and make bowling fans out of people who don't even bowl, just like the PGA Tour did with golf after Tiger Woods came on the scene," Hromek said. "I think we can do it too."

Bowling has a built-in fan base, as an estimated 50 million Americans play at least once a year. But the trick for the PBA Tour is getting those casual bowlers to follow the tour and push the dominos toward greater visibility and prize money.

There was a time when newspapers such as this one ran weekly bowling columns and features and went strong with their coverage when the tour was in town. But the PBA did little most of those years to promote itself and didn't even have a marketing department until Peters' group took charge.

Today that department is offering story tips and suggestions, hoping to spark a revival that would allow this simplest of games to once again stand on its own.