BATON ROUGE - After the first week of PBA Bowling on The CW I said I would wait until things moved down the road to make a judgement on the 10 weeks of broadcasts on the channel for the first time.

After the first three matches on the first week, I might have posted a barely passing grade because of surprisingly awkward production, an announcer calling wrong pins and a sloppy start to the first show.

Despite having to learn to like orange scoring on black (The CW color scheme), at the end of 10 weeks I give the CW a pretty solid B- grade. A lot of their plusses came in a return to an old camera position and the use of a player reaction box that hasn’t been used regularly since maybe the ABC broadcasts.

The camera that returned sitting between the bowlers was an old ESPN show trick (used sometimes by CBSSN) that gave you quick reactions and sometimes a low angle of shots. It disappeared in the FOX days and it was good to see the CW bring it back.

The reaction box was also great in tight matches and brought an instantaneous view of reactions and did not need a quick finger of a director to change cameras. It was a big plus.

The CW was helped by an amazing year by rookies with four winners, six first-time winners in all and a 300 and 299 in championship matches. Good storylines, some surprising, helped their grade a lot.

Now to announcers.

I’m convinced Kyle Sherman will be very good at this and he was by the end of the 10 weeks. We will see him a lot in the World Series of Bowling. He worked well in the situations with two analysts in the booth, especially Jason Belmonte and the last show with the retiring Chris Barnes. A three-man booth wouldn’t be a bad thing for The CW.

Now on to Rick Allen. Allen is not someone they found on the street. He has a lengthy resume’ that includes a lot of NASCAR work, football, etc. He unfortunately was in a situation where he was learning on the fly about bowling and when his analyst could have used his help to amplify storylines, I’m not sure Allen was asking and setting up Sherman with the correct questions.

Also it took a while for his enthusiasm level to get going. I’m not expecting Rob Stone level but people like Dave Lamont and Dave Ryan knew how to set Randy Pedersen up to be the star analyst and Sherman will be better with that.

BOWLTV was bringing Lamont in to call early round action on major weeks and he could have easily been the guy for the CW. But Allen got better, but he can be much better and hopefully he will watch a lot of network telecasts from the past to get a better feel before next year. He does want to learn about the bowlers and their sport. That’s important.

My friend Tim Brando called the ABC Masters many years ago on ESPN and he asked what he needed to know. I told him stay out of the way of his analyst and whatever you do call the pins by the right number.

Again, a solid B- for The CW, and I look forward to seeing how they move forward next winter.

WORLD SERIES OF BOWLING

The WSOB is going to be fascinating when television coverage begins on CBSSN on Saturday. We are going to see a lot of bowlers in a short period of time and for the first time in years, the PBA50 tour will get their own championships on air.

The four animal patterns on the main PBA Tour will have 12 bowlers involved in seven matches to determine a champion with two matches going on at the same time to get to a championship match. The three animal patterns and the world championship for the PBA50 will feature three bowlers.

Here’s the schedule:

Saturday, May 9

PBA50 Ballard Championship FINALS, 2 p.m.

PBA Cheetah Championship, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Sunday, May 10

PBA50 Monacelli Championship FINALS, 2 p.m.

PBA Chameleon Championship, 3 and 5 p.m.

Monday, May 11

PBA50 Petraglia Championship FINALS, 5 p.m.

PBA Scorpion Championship, 6 and 8 p.m.

Tuesday, May 12

PBA50 World Championship FINALS, 5 p.m.

PBA Shark Championship, 6 and 8 p.m.

Basically, five hours a night for four days. That’s pretty good and the folks at CBSSN will make sure it’s an amazing presentation. It may be a little confusing with two matches going on at the same time, but it promises to be very entertaining and we’ll see what top bowlers make cuts and what members of this group of strong young bowlers possibly break through.

Next week, Chad Murphy at USBC is hinting again about another Baton Rouge USBC Open, but not as soon as we might have thought. We will be seeing what we can figure out next Monday.

Until then good luck and good bowling, 

                                                     Kent Lowe