This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, July, 2022
Does it make sense that the two players who did the least amount of losing—in fact, the two players who combined to do less losing than each of their 126 match-play competitors—in the 2022 USBC Masters and USBC Queens, both finished second?
Yes. In a sport that considers one of its all-time greatest moments to be two broadcasters standing outside a bowling alley telling the ABC viewers there might be a bomb inside, of course this makes sense.
For real, though, yes, it makes sense. And neither of those least-losses-second-placers is complaining. But there are still some in bowling who do complain (the classic have-to-win-the-tournament-twice argument), though such complaints are generally not prevalent among the touring professionals.
The pros understand that without the stepladder, there’s no TV and thus less money in the purse. As we recall, the stepladder was invented to generate compelling TV content a general audience would want to watch and be able to comprehend. If titles and fairness are more important than money, then sure, let’s do away with TV and stepladders and bowl however many games it takes to ensure the best player wins in solitude.
A stepladder makes good TV. Casual fans can understand this person versus that person, high score wins. All the players know the tournament formats before they enter. There are no surprises. The top seed is not entitled to the trophy and the players compartmentalize the events. Before the first ball is rolled in qualifying, no matter what the format, players have the same goal: get to the show, win the show.
Other sports do the same thing. The stepladder finals are essentially bowling’s playoffs, not to be confused with the actual PBA Playoffs, which are not to be confused with the PBA Tour Finals, which are not to be confused with the colloquial finals of any given event, which is match play, which doesn’t exist at the PBA Tour Finals, unless you count the stepladder finals as match play, which you technically could but probably shouldn’t.
The top-seeded NHL and NBA teams don’t always win their league titles. After they slog through 82-game regular seasons (qualifying), they’re seeded into the playoffs (match play and stepladder finals), at which point winning has to happen quickly or they’re done. Granted, the NHL doesn’t suddenly shorten playoff games to a single period to fit better with TV, but in general, the concept is the same. Get to the show, win the show. It’s just that bowling holds a new set of playoffs every weekend.
Consider the majors on the PBA and PWBA Tours:
In the Masters and Queens, we’re going to bowl 15 games, try to crack the top 64 for three-game total-pinfall double-elimination bracket match play, then seed ourselves into a five-person one-game stepladder. In the two U.S. Opens, we’re going to bowl 56,000 games, including an all-important cashers round, in order to ensure the correct five players get 10 frames against each other on television. In the PBA World Championship and PWBA Tour Championship, we’re going to bowl several other events that make up the overall event and then bowl some more to make the top five. In the PBA Players Championship, we’re going to first have to qualify within the top five of our region, then win a stepladder, then re-seed ourselves against the other regional winners, then win another stepladder. In the PBA Tournament of Champions, we’re going to hope there’s no bomb inside.
We all know this and it’s part of the fun of the events for fans and better-than-it-would-be-otherwise prize funds for players. In every one of the above events, five people end up on television bowling single games head-to-head in a stepladder format, taking it one shot at a time.
At the end, we have a winner and, usually, a satisfied audience. Casual fans respect the athleticism and easy-to-understand one-on-one title match and bowling fans respect the determination of winning when it matters, no matter where the winner was originally seeded.
And that, along with trusting the process, is what truly matters.