Well we are making the turn and heading into the 2014/2015 league season for bowling, and it looks like some exciting things are in store for MSBS. This article/newsletter is one of the new additions to MSBS (long overdue too). Working on the website, booking new events, making changes here and there; we sort of take it for granted and assume that everybody just follows along and keeps up with it all. Then somebody asks a question and we come back to the reality that, yeah, we need to communicate a little better. With that said, welcome to the first edition of the MSBS News, and here it is.
Open Tournament Schedule
Yeah we used to call these events “classic tournaments”, but we didn’t like that name. We’re not crazy about “open” either. But we haven’t come up with a better term for our tournaments that are generally $75 and up for entry fees and count toward points. We are still taking suggestions and ideas.
We had to move some dates/locations around again. The 2014 Toledo War is now November 23. Our event in Crest Hill, IL is likely to stay on November 22. This means we will have two open events (not so close to one another) on the same weekend for a second time this year. The September 6-7 doubles/singles weekend in Saginaw is the other which is shaping up to be very fun with lots of action. Our longest running annual tournament is also in September as we visit Royal Scot Lanes in Lansing, MI for a third consecutive year. December will be jam packed as we moved the Pro Bowl West Fort Wayne Open to the 14th of the month.
These should be the last of the changes for the remainder of our open schedule in 2014.
Introducing the MSBS Metro Challenge
One of our goals is to attract many types of competitive bowlers. We now have three tiers of events to offer.
Open Tier – These events are designed to draw bowlers locally while also making it worth the trip for those who will travel for a bowling tournament. Most events have an $85 entry fee at this time, but we do mix in some $125 or $75 events in from time to time as well. This tier of events has a point system with an end of the year championship and a Bowler of the Year.
Metro Challenge – We are currently only running this circuit in Metro Detroit. With an entry fee of $65, these events are more designed to attract local bowlers in the Metro Detroit area. We are trying a different format for these events using the eliminator-type format for bowlers making the cut. With a 1 in 5 pay ratio, we will be able to pay better on the bottom (our goal is at least $100 for last cash) while still paying good on top ($1000 minimum is the goal here). The oil patterns used will also be all Kegel and WTBA patterns for now, which means scores could be slightly higher from time to time.
Sweeper Tier – The popularity of this tier of events really exploded for us in 2014. With entry fees of $40 or $45, the goal is to draw mostly local bowlers, although sometimes we get the bowling enthusiasts that will travel a few hours for the love of the sport (I have been known to travel a large distance for lower entry fees myself). These events have done very well in small towns as well as larger metro areas. We are so lucky to have such amazing people help to hype these events for us because of the fact that we rely mostly on local bowlers to fill these events.
At some point the new Metro Challenge events could be run in other cities like Chicago or Cleveland. We’ll see where things take us next!
Website Updates
We are always striving to make things better. The website is certainly one thing that helps to make our events as popular as they are now, and we continue to try to offer more through the website. Aaron Phillips is not only in 5th place in our BOY race, but he is also the person who does all of the work behind the scenes on both ScratchBowling.com and MichiganBowling.com.
As you visit ScratchBowling.com you will notice we list a few events over on the right now as well. These are non-MSBS events that we are supporting in some way. We offer live scoring services and online promotion to other scratch tournaments. Aaron will soon be starting a new organization and website to take those services even further as well as offering many new services to the world of competitive bowling.
Looking at the main navigation of the website you will see a couple of new links now. We have a link for “Honor Scores” which is self explanatory. We also have a “Community” link. This is where we list all businesses that have either sponsored one or more of our events or they help support MSBS in some way. We really hope to build the community section of the website to be as strong as our MSBS community, which means getting many people working together to build something that we can all be proud of.
That’s a Wrap
This is all of the news that we will be bringing you at this time about MSBS. I’m not sure how often I’ll be writing these newsletters, but I’m going to try to write a new one at least bi-weekly. Thank you for taking the time to catch up with us, and we’ll see you at the lanes!
Brian Regan
MSBS