Whether it is graphics showing changes in oil patterns on the lanes or more emotion being shown on strikes, the sport of bowling has caught up with the times when it comes to putting a captivating show on television.
Fox Sports and the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) have made the most of their partnership, which is in its fourth year.
Going into this weekend’s US Open, which is the fifth and final major of the season, ratings on Fox and FS1 continue to hold steady at a time when other sports have experienced huge drops.
The US Open, which is in Reno, Nevada, is to have its finals today air on FS1.
“We are bringing an upgraded viewing experience for every viewer at home,” PBA chief executive officer Colie Edison said. “They’re able to understand this is not when you or I go to a birthday party and throw the ball right down the middle of the lane.”
“They are able to be really engaged into the intricacies of the sport and view this not just as recreation,” Edison said.
The PBA produces the events, but a lot of the technological evolutions have been in partnership with Fox.
There is a StrikeTrack, which shows the ball speed, location and revolutions per minute and other features.
There are also graphics that track the change in oil patterns on the lane, while the scorebox updates with the maximum score each bowler could get, which makes it easier to understand the flow of matches.
“Viewers can more easily understand the oil patterns, they can understand the strategy of the players as they spin the ball,” said Bill Wanger, who heads up Fox’s scheduling and programming. “Another thing that is quite appealing to people is if a bowler doesn’t get a strike, and he’s trying to pick up a spare, we have statistics on the screen that show the odds of picking it up.”
The bowlers themselves are also getting to show their own personality with pre-match introduction videos, so that viewers get to know them better.
Fox’s Rob Stone, who is a staple of their college football, basketball and soccer coverage, is also the network’s bowling announcer.
Stone said that the sport has ended up being a refreshing outlet for him to do something different.
“It’s a sport that I was thrust into that was not on my radar, but it’s now a part of my life that I couldn’t imagine not having on my resume,” he said.
“It’s very much a happy place. For me when I get there and I see the faces and the athletes, it’s got kind of as homey feel for me that it’s just completely unexpected,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier