A FUTURE FOR THE SPORT - 2023 RECAP, 2024 PREVIEW

By Chad Murphy, USBC Executive Director

Hi there, hope everyone is safe and healthy as we head into 2024. 2023 was a banner year for USBC at all levels.

Let’s start with the membership, where we continue to see a growth trend.

• 2020-2021 - 850,669 members
• 2021-2022 - 1,053,129 (23.8% increase)
• 2022-2023 - 1,093,909 (4% increase)

The data here is exciting. Now as we start 2024, USBC’s membership growth is looking like more than just a bounce back from COVID-19. We saw more new bowlers (8% increase) this past season compared to historical trends.

Congratulations to everyone in the field that has continued to commit to league bowling. I have consistently said that USBC membership nationally is a reflection of the efforts locally. Thanks to all for the outstanding work.

Will the trend continue? We still have several months to go, but the forecast looks encouraging. More to come on that.

Turning to our national events, continued growth at both the USBC Open and Women’s Championships was great to see. Here are those trends:

USBC Open Championships:

• 2021 – 7,609 teams
• 2022 – 9,317 teams
• 2023 – 9,565 teams

USBC Women’s Championships:

• 2021 – 2,522 teams
• 2022 – 3,155 teams
• 2023 – 4,148 teams

As most of you know, membership dues and these two tournaments make up over 90% of USBC’s revenue stream. Needless to say, these were big wins for the association and led to a fantastic year. Thank you to the roughly 65,000 bowlers who supported these championships in 2023!

On the lanes at the USBC Women’s Championships, Melissa Kammerer shot 818 in singles, the highest three-game set of all time. Onalee Kraus became only the third woman to reach 61 years of participation and PWBA professional Liz Kuhlkin made a run at the all-events record, shooting the second highest nine-game total in history with a 2,288 score. Congratulations to all three.

At the USBC Open Championships, Mr. 900 – Glenn Allison – tied the participation record by competing in his 71st event. In addition, we had four new members of the 100,000-Pin Club with Bill Spigner, Dennis Lane, Bob Chamberlain and Robert Brissette becoming new members of this exclusive club.

Professional women’s bowling continues to generate excitement. The PWBA launched a new website and a full regional schedule for the first time. Six of the 10 regionals were sellouts! 2023 also marked the 100th event since the relaunch of PWBA back in 2015. Jordan Richard was crowned PWBA Player of the Year and newcomer Hope Gramly won PWBA Rookie of the Year.

Highlights on the men’s side of our slate included EJ Tackett winning the U.S. Open to complete the triple crown in his home state of Indiana, and long-time Team USA member John Janawicz winning his first professional title at the USBC Senior Masters.

Additional milestones for our USBC national tournaments included:

• USBC Masters sold out 390 entries in 9 1/2 hours.
• Senior Masters sold out 312 entries.
• Super Senior Classic sold out 208 entries.
• U.S. Open and U.S. Open PTQ each sold out 108 entries.
• Team USA Trials sold out 175 entries for the men’s field.
• Senior Queens had 92 entries, the most in over a decade.
• USBC Queens had 217 entries, the most since 2016.

If these numbers seem staggering, it’s because they are. We are thrilled to see interest in competitive bowling at the highest level so strong.

Moving over to the governance side, our equipment specifications team and center certification group did some groundbreaking work in 2023.

USBC completed research and announced a certification standard for string pinsetters. While only impacting a very small number of bowlers, this gives a new option for certified play following a research project that spanned three years.

Our team also published three new research reports on ball motion relating to ball hardness on BOWL.com. We continue to learn and share more about the effect of ball hardness on performance. In addition, the team, with credit to Magnum Bowling Products for collaboration, published a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to measure “footprint” or contact area of a bowling ball. This SOP will help dispel some of the myths of the past about footprint and allow a new SOP for the industry to conduct consistent testing.

The new center certification program saw USBC staff visit over 1,100 bowling centers and measure 23,000 lane beds with our new ACE tool. This is incredible when you consider the new technology and the willingness of our industry proprietors to work with us in this area. Thanks to all involved.

Bowling’s scholarship program impacted more students than ever before. Our SMART program again gave a $7 million distribution. $3.7 million went to 5,237 active SMART recipients who used funds the previous year. Then, SMART added an additional $1 million to the SMART Pell Grant Match program to further support bowling students who needed aid the most! These are all records for the program and no other governing body matches this type of scholarship support for its young athletes’ education.

The 2023 USBC Convention proved to be an amazing experience. We surveyed attendees for feedback. The results:

• 93% said the USBC Convention met or exceeded their expectations.
• 86% rated the education seminars as Good or Excellent.
• Over 90% gave us approval for Overall Satisfaction.

On the youth bowling side, USBC’s Junior Gold Championships had 3,489 participants in 2023, paying out a whopping $500,000 in scholarships. It was the 25th anniversary, which saw a return of the finals being nationally televised on CBS Sports Network. USBC Collegiate’s growth continues to break records. We now have 233 schools in membership with the program. Opportunities for collegiate bowling are better than ever as we now have a record 4,318 student-athletes as USBC Collegiate members.

Bowler’s Ed quietly delivered a holiday gift to over 2,500 proprietors in December. Each received a gift box containing curriculum on a zip drive for teaching bowling in a physical education class. The box came with a request for the center to pass it along to a local elementary school in the hopes of creating new relationships and customers. Hopefully also getting kids introduced to bowling along the way.

The USBC Team USA program and its athletes made our country proud competing internationally. At the Pan American Games in Chile, Breanna Clemmer and Jordan Richard took the gold medal in women’s doubles. In singles, Clemmer claimed bronze and AJ Johnson brought home the gold for the men.

On the Junior Team USA side, Team USA medaled 17 times in 20 opportunities during the PANAM Bowling Youth Championships in Peru. Finally, at the 2023 IBF World Senior Championships, Team USA won 23 of a possible 32 medals. Awesome high-performance results for our Team USA program in 2023!

Bowlers Journal printed a record 252,784 magazines this year. Every Junior Gold member received a subscription as part of this historical offering. In addition, a new USBC membership product called First Frame Powered by Bowlers Journal launched in August to start the season. First Frame is a smaller, digital version of the magazine that every USBC member gets as a benefit of joining USBC.

BowlTV eclipsed 10,000 subscribers in 2023 and streamed more than 120 events to conclude the year. It really is special to see quality content being made available for the entire bowling world to access. Before 2019, only some of the competitions were streamed or even covered. Now, there are significant resources going to cover the sport, and BowlTV is paving the way to showcase athletes of all ages and skill levels across its platform.

In the technology space, USBC delivered a big year of improvements. We launched a modern way to buy membership online that projects to see 100,000 members join through the new platform. That’s up more than 40% from last year, and it’s provided members with a much easier and secure way to renew their membership.

Two additional projects rolled out to select groups for testing. A new Youth League Registration portal is available for centers that process their USBC membership. Secondly, USBC is offering a new “Bulk Membership” processing option for centers to directly buy USBC memberships for their bowlers. Both of these new systems remove the need for a paper membership application card completely. These new ways to purchase membership include collecting dues to support USBC local and state associations in the transactions. We are excited to be moving toward a more efficient and effective digital ecosystem for membership purchases.

Lastly on the technology topic, I’m proud of our state and local association leaders in their willingness to embrace new technology. In 2023, USBC’s online tournament registration system processed more than 100,000 entries and collected more than $5.5 million for state and local tournaments. This is USBC state and local business being aided by a resource provided by national. USBC national doesn’t make a profit here. We built a resource, and now it’s a huge benefit to our associations, really to bowlers, all over the country. Over 4,000 local and state association tournaments were conducted in 2023. Amazing value!

Coaching. Let’s talk about coaching.

USBC’s new Coach+ product launched this past year. The program is a new way to feature our USBC Bronze-, Silver- and Gold-level coaches on BOWL.com. In addition, we saw 600 new Level 1 certified coaches, 264 coaches earn Bronze certification and 108 earn Silver certification in 2023.

Lastly for 2023, our financials again show that USBC is in a very strong position. Proud of the team here, the marketplace and everyone involved. Feeling thankful and blessed to be part of such an incredible association in service to such a special sport that provides so much fun and competition for our members.

2024 and Beyond
We will continue to make service a focus for USBC. Quality service to our members, associations, centers and industry partners is an everyday priority. Great customer service drives USBC’s success in our five key areas of focus (see below).

Membership
The trends are good again. As of Jan. 1, the USBC membership is currently forecast to be up 1.1% for the 2023-2024 season. We have already reached 87.7% of last year’s membership total. Of course, there are many months of the season ahead.

We will certainly know more by the time we get to USBC Convention in April and will report more then. Again, I can’t thank the folks who control our membership success at the local level enough. The centers, league coordinators, the league officers and the associations get the credit. Thanks again for the commitment to growing our league base.

Tournaments
Wow, as of January 2024, we have over 10,800 teams registered for the 2024 USBC Open Championships. This will mark a third straight year of growth following COVID.

Moving forward, what will 2025 in Baton Rouge bring for the Open? We recently did a survey asking that question to our Captain’s Club members, and the results showed an expected 3% growth for Baton Rouge due to the event returning to the eastern side of the country. Given the increased demand and the survey, we recently announced a new squad schedule for the Open starting in 2025 that will deliver increased capacity.

The Open returns to Reno in 2026. Recently, Reno numbers have been smaller than Las Vegas, but that’s not the indicator we watch. If entries for Reno in 2026 beat the Reno 2023 numbers, it is a huge indicator that the demand for the tournament will continue to grow when we return to Las Vegas in 2027.

All of this is very positive for USBC’s championships and the association overall.

As for the USBC Women’s Championships, the event returns to Reno this year. We have 3,700 teams sold currently and expect around 4,000. While this would be a decline from 2023 in Las Vegas, again, that’s not the key indicator. We are forecasting considerable growth from the last Women’s Championships outside of Las Vegas, where the event had 3,155 teams in 2022.

Demand is clearly strong for our championship tournaments.

The 2024 PWBA schedule is out, and we have a couple new locations this season. The structure of the tour and prize funds is the same as 2023. In 2024, the PWBA Tour will showcase 13 championship tournaments with over $1.4 million in prize money!

The USBC Masters sold out in less than two hours and Junior Gold is tracking to grow again. It’s going to be an incredible 2024 for our events.

Youth Program Development
2024 will mark the 50th anniversary of college bowling. A celebration is scheduled at this year’s ITC/ISC banquet with every four-year first and second team All American receiving an invite to the festivities. Should be a fun night filled with some special moments and great memories.

Junior Gold is growing again, up 5% over 2023 so far. With the age change and removal of the upper division, it’s hard to break records here. But, if you measure the event against the same historical division structure, 2024 looks to be the largest on record.

The addition of scholarships to USA Bowling has spurred growth this season in that program, and the USA Coaching seminars are planning a return to a full schedule in 2024.

On the membership front, youth membership is trending flat or just up for 2024, which is in line with the adult membership since COVID. Also, be on the lookout for a new “Youth League Resource Guide” that will be delivered pre-Bowl Expo this summer that will help league coordinators and proprietors with some new short-season league ideas to supplement their existing business. We’re looking forward to a productive 2024 for the youth department.

Marketing/Media
Exposure for competitive bowling will be spectacular in 2024. USBC and the PBA announced a multi-year media partnership last year. Under the agreement, the U.S. Open and USBC Masters will continue as part of the PBA Tour on FOX package.

USBC also announced a new agreement with CBS Sports Network for the PWBA, USBC Collegiate, Junior Gold and USA Bowling.

BowlTV will again be the exclusive livestreaming home for the PBA, PWBA, USBC Collegiate, Junior Gold and Team USA events.

Bowlers Journal International magazine will continue sharing the story behind the story throughout our sport. The magazine’s focus on features and instruction provides unique insight found nowhere else.

When you combine these digital, streaming, broadcast and traditional print offerings, USBC and its partnerships are providing coverage of bowling from all angles across every medium.

We look for USBC’s “Why I Certify” campaign to continue to resonate at the league level in 2024. “Why I Certify” features USBC members talking about the importance of USBC certification and what bowling certified means to them. If you are reading this update, you understand that a vote for USBC certification in league is a vote for fair play and ensuring a future for our sport. We need to continue to convey the message that “If you’re for bowling, then bowling certified is for you.”

USBC will also continue our partnerships with BPAA that deliver the GoBowling brand to raise top-of-mind awareness for the sport outside of our own channels. GoBowling has a larger strategy to expand awareness about bowling. You probably have seen the GoBowling brand mentioned during mainstream events, sports and media events throughout the year. The progress we have made in recent years is exciting, and we continue to look for new ways to do even more.

Technology
The USBC technology team plans to deliver the next phase of registration options in 2024. The Youth League Registration system that was offered to select centers in 2023 will expand to offer Adult League Registration. Current plans call for a soft launch of the system later this year.

Our team also will continue work on the “Bulk Membership” processing tool and offer this convenient option to more centers across the country. Our goals by the end of 2024 are to have multiple digital membership purchase options that didn’t exist a couple of years ago:

• Online Join for individual members
• Bulk Membership processing for centers
• Youth League Registration
• Adult League Registration

All of these products will be optional, but we are excited to see them grow in use over time.

Equipment Specifications
USBC’s equipment specifications team recently completed several historic projects that spanned many years. Our plan for 2024 is to continue collecting data in these important areas and listen to our stakeholders in the market.

We expect it to be a little calmer as far as new regulations are concerned in 2024. If you think about the last several years, there has been so much new research to analyze and consume. We look forward to studying data from the field and welcome the opportunity to review new research from independent sources and our industry partners.

Summary
Our National Governing Body is moving forward and improving in many positive ways, and we can all take pride in the accomplishments.

Thank you to the current USBC Board of Directors in addition to all the committees for their leadership, support and strategic direction.

Having strong volunteer leadership has never been more important. In that light, a huge thanks to the thousands of association volunteers who dedicate countless hours in support of bowling.

Finally, thank you to our entire staff here at the International Bowling Campus for their efforts and passion.

I will close with a friendly reminder as to the mission and promise of USBC. It is certainly an honor and a privilege to serve as your executive director.

USBC is the National Governing Body for the sport.

Our mission is to provide services, resources and standards for the sport.

Our promise is to celebrate the past, be mindful of the present and ensure bowling’s future through thoughtful research, planning and delivery. We will protect and nurture the sport with a mutual admiration and respect for all who enjoy bowling.

Chad Murphy
USBC Executive Director