The Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour is a place where you do not want to miss a single moment these days, the world is catching on. You can get it all live on Xtra Frame and with live scoring on pba.com leading up to each and every ESPN show.
When does a one-hit wonder turn into an unmistakable trend? Once is lucky, twice is nice, stories of the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour are hitting the national consciousness with the regularity of a Chris Barnes match play appearance.
The media momentum has been building for over a year now on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour. Newspapers, magazines, national television programs, radio shows, online columns, blogs, tweets and Facebook pages are spreading the news.
No single player or story has dominated the coverage. Many people with many different stories have started many conversations across the country and around the world. Professional bowling is back!
At the start of the 2008-09 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour season, an international sensation by the name of Jason Belmonte used both hands to thrust himself into the national spotlight. The affable, good-natured Australian blazed a trail of ink from coast-to-coast than started with the front page of the Wall Street Journal to the Los Angeles Times.
Belmo backed up the hype by advancing through the Tour Qualifying Round at the 2009 Bowling Foundation Long Island Classic by a single pin, into the field and won a pair of televised matches to capture his first Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour title.
All of that after showing Governor Mike Huckabee how to bowl the day before live on Fox and Friends on a damp day in New York City.
Thanks to the interest created by Belmonte, the international bowling community turned up the heat during this season’s World Series of Bowling in Detroit. Now the world’s greatest bowlers and the greatest bowlers in the world have a new worldwide showcase for the sport of pro bowling.
The undisputed King of Bowling and reigning PBA Player of the Year Wes Malott chose not to participate in the GEICO Plastic Ball Tournament in Denver which drew the commentary of Michael Wilbon on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption.
The resulting national conversation ended with a much-anticipated meeting between The Big Nasty and Wilbon at the King of Bowling series at the Kegel Training facility.
Wilbon advanced as a winner thanks to a 57-pin handicap and pro bowling advanced the storyline of how the modern equipment has radically changed the sport of professional bowling.
The first half of the 2009-10 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour season began with the World Series of Bowling and ended with the live finals of the PBA World Championship. This time Tom Smallwood had a compelling story to tell and captured the attention of America and the mainstream media.
From unemployed auto worker to PBA World Champion, Smallwood met every challenge on the lanes and told the story of his accomplishment to a national audience who could easily relate to having to find a way to support a family while trying to chase a dream.
With his entire life on the line, Smallwood stepped up in the tenth frame and delivered a strike to remember. We are still talking about it.
Kelly Kulick was the No. 1 search item on Google Trends after her win in the PBA Tournament of Champions. The live ESPN show was the second most highly rated PBA show in 10 years. After the major victory, Kelly made the rounds in New York City from the CBS Early Show to ESPN’s First Take and Jay Leno included Kelly’s accomplishment in his monologue two days after the big win.
The only woman to ever qualify as an exempt player on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour had made history again. National conversations are taking place on gender equality, strategy, lane conditions and bowling equipment as another dream was fulfilled. From Billie Jean King to Terrell Owens, we are all talking about pro bowling and pro bowlers.
Kelly’s story is still being told. A major spread in Sports Illustrated is forthcoming; the national appearances for Kulick are still being planned.
This is no fluke, this is no mistake, and this is no one-hit wonder. Pro bowling is back!
Where will the next story come from, who will step up and demand the spotlight, what circumstances will drive the next national media attention?
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