BATON ROUGE - In this time when women’s professional sports are getting more and more attention and in return a lot of television time that wasn’t available to them in past years, it is a fact that the PWBA, the Professional Women’s Bowling Association, hasn’t been as fortunate.

If you remember back when the tour started, CBS Sports Network did a lot of the championship rounds. You may remember more that in 2017 here in Baton Rouge at the Raising Canes River Center, four finals were taped on the specially built lanes, including the USBC Queens major championship.

That was a way to save a tremendous amount of production costs for the PWBA and the network as three events in other cities were bowled all the way to the stepladder finals and then those three were bowled after the Queen’s event which was conducted at the River Center and shown in succeeding weeks on tape-delay.

Now I may be wrong but I remember that at least two if not all three events that were recorded for later viewing were from events in California. CBS announcer Dave Ryan would change shirt, tie and sportscoat and another show would be recorded. They never said where they actually were bowling, but would use scenics of the city that was supposed to host the finals going in and out of breaks.

The main point was they were on TV.

From there, CBS Sports Network did the majors and a group of late season tournaments that were a few extra special events. Last year, CBS SN did the normal Queen’s, U.S. Open and the extremely exciting Anniversary Open celebrating a decade of the return of the women’s tour. That was bowled as part of the Junior Gold event in an arena setting in Green Bay before a large crowd.

But this year CBS SN has only broadcast the Queen’s and the Open.  The Tour Championship concluding the season on Tuesday night, will be streamed on BowlTV, USBC’s streaming arm. Nothing against my friend Emil Williams Jr., who normally leads the broadcast crew for the PWBA, the exposure of an over-the-air telecast would be much more important to the tour.

The Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) is jointly operated and funded by the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) and the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America (BPAA). That’s a little bit of the situation. The PWBA is not its own organization like say the LPGA. The USBC and BPAA is basically underwriting most of these events so there is a decent prize fund and operations to make this a viable tour, which it certainly is.

For example, the USBC and PBAA are putting up $100,000 to give the tour championship a $30,00 first prize on top. The USBC Queens had an added prize fund of $225,000 and a total prize of $324,000 after entry fees with a top of $60,000. Have to wonder what those prize fund would look like if money had to be spent for TV production each week.

It’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? But the thing is as good as Dave Ryan and Kelly Kulik are calling those matches on the two television broadcasts, they do not have a chance to put together the season-long stories and human-interest things that make you want to watch them again, whether its on TV or streaming. You have to look for and want to find women’s bowling on a steaming site. It seems easier to find other top women’s sports than women’s bowling.

Granted, also, women’s pro bowling also has had lots of fits and starts and different names as one tour would fail or join up with another group. I remember the 2003 season of the women’s bowling tour, televised weekly on ESPN, when the head of the organization, John Falzone, came on the ESPN broadcast from Dallas and said the tour probably didn’t have the funding to continue with the fall tour. It didn’t and was done.

It would be 12 years before there was a regularly scheduled women’s tour again. It isn’t cheap to put sports on over-the-air TV and believe me, those streaming broadcasts aren’t being done for free when it comes to the PWBA.

I just want to see the sport I like a lot give the PWBA Tour a chance to grow and shine. These ladies are really good and new players off their college teams are joining the tour every summer. The best of this 2026 season bowl Tuesday night in the stepladder finals for the tour title at 5:30 p.m. CT. Take a moment and drop on by BowlTV. If you are a bowling fan, it’s worth watching.

Back with you next Monday.

Until then, good luck and good bowling,

                                                               Kent Lowe