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Why Become a Survivor?
We have all bowled in or heard of sport condition leagues that do not continue or fail to start and have high bowler “drop” rates.
Why is it so difficult to get bowlers, proprietors and pro shop professionals to sport bowling?
Understanding the current state of sport bowling.
“Sport Bowling consists of leagues and tournament that are conducted on challenging lane conditions. The program, in its most basic form, is an opportunity for all bowlers to determine their true skills in such areas as accuracy, consistency, the ability to read lanes, and spare shooting skills to have success rather than rely on today's high-tech equipment or forgiving lane patterns to achieve high honor awards.
It is a new level of competition embraced by bowlers who are seeking a greater challenge and to base their level of success directly on their skills.”
This is the description of sport bowling directly from our (USBC) website on sport bowling
This is an accurate description of the product and how it is currently being sold to the bowlers.
Current experience with sport bowling has shown that most bowlers who join sport conditions fall into three categories:
1) They are bowlers of high skill levels looking for credible competition
2) They are bowlers who believe they have a high skill level
3) They are bowlers who are looking for that competitive experience.
Bowlers from category one are looking for a challenge and credibility, they want to improve their individual skill levels and see “where they stand”. They enjoy the personal competition and the challenge. We see the loss of some of these bowlers from current sport conditions because the leagues are generally smaller and don’t offer the competitive experience they are looking for or do not possess the financial incentives that house leagues offer.
Bowlers from category two join initially because they believe that they possess the skills necessary and are looking for the same things as bowler one. They quickly realize that this is not a correct assumption, and become disappointed. If they have high self esteem they might weather the realization, often however we see these bowlers leave because they simply cannot “keep” up and the incentives do not outweigh the “pain”.
Bowlers from category three join initially because of our marketing of the sport experience. We speak of competition and credibility and this bowler is seeking the competitive experience. The dropout of this bowler is not because of the difficult condition, although it might be our first reaction. If we lose these bowlers it is because the focus is the lane condition and not the competition.
I believe that if you take 100 people you will find within this group, varying levels of competitive nature. A certain cross section of those individuals is extremely competitive; I believe that this competitive fire exists inside bowlers of all three categories previously mentioned.
Com-pete 1. To take part in a contest 2. To be a rival for something
It is from this understanding that Survivor was born. The traits that this league would need to posses would be:
Competition, the experience, the excitement, the drama
The “Wide World of Sports” experience, Survivor would need to show the spectrum of competition, bowlers should enjoy the “experience”
An invitation for all bowlers to enjoy “sport”
Survivor would need to offer competition for bowlers of “all” skill levels, these lower skill level players should enjoy the competition as well.
The focus will be competition on challenging conditions,
Survivor will be bowlers coming for competition and staying for the lane conditions. Or, bowlers coming for the lane conditions and staying for the competition. This is the goal.
Short Seasons, Two hour experiences.
This is not your momma’s league, it doesn’t look like it, and it doesn’t bowl like it. Survivor will be a crucible of experience; we don’t want to bake you for 33 weeks at three plus hours a night.
We are going to bowl scratch!
Oh no! Not scratch Mr. Bill. We could never get a scratch league off the ground. Wanna bet? The key to competition is to allow competitors to “be a rival” Sheep will not continue to come to slaughter; rivals get up off the floor and come back for more. We want to create bowlers who feel that they can rival for something. The problem with handicap in competition is that the skilled players resent it. If we are about sport, the handicap has no place, we must create another way for the lesser skilled player to enjoy the competitive experience.
I bowl Survivor; do you have what it takes?
Attitude, swagger and pride. Foster some added value and experience. Bowlers are going to pay $9 for sport so let’s give it to them.
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