Tenpin bowling

International

World Bowling (WB) was formed in 2014 from component organizations of the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ, International Federation of Bowlers), which in 1952 developed from the International Bowling Association (IBA) which began operations in 1926. The World Tenpin Bowling Association "membership discipline" (component organization) of WB serves the amateur sport of ten-pin bowling worldwide, adopting uniform playing rules and equipment specifications.

United Kingdom

The British Tenpin Bowling Association (BTBA, formed in 1961) is the official governing body recognized by World Bowling as the official sanctioning body in England, and as such "is responsible for the protection, integrity and development of the sport".

The National Association of Youth Bowling Clubs (NAYBC) is a BTBA subcommittee serving youth bowlers and youth bowling clubs.

The British Universities Tenpin Bowling Association (BUTBA, formed in 2008) organizes bowling events for present and former university and college students.

The Tenpin Bowling Proprietors Association (TBPA, formed in 1961 as an umbrella organization) is a trade association for the British ten-pin bowling industry.

United States

thumb|right|Poster for the first national bowling competition sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress. Highest per-game average scores: individual competition (216), doubles (200), five-man teams (181). A protest was filed against the highest-scoring doubles team, alleging use of a ball that was a quarter-inch larger in circumference than permitted.

The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) was formed as the governing body for the U.S. on January 1, 2005, by the merger of: and

(Team) USA Bowling (1989). its stated goals including growing the sport and promoting values of "credibility, dedication, excellence, heritage, inclusiveness, integrity, philanthropy and sportsmanship".

The National Bowling Association (TNBA), formed in 1939 as the National Negro Bowling Association, served minority bowlers before the ABC and WIBC in 1950 removed restrictions limiting membership to Caucasians.

Tournaments

thumb | right | Conceptual diagram of a large bowling tournament. Entrants not eliminated in qualifying rounds go on to compete in match play, which determines [[Seed (sports)|seeding (initial ranking) for the final matches.]]

World Bowling oversees quadrennial World Championship tournaments, and international championships for various sectors, including for women, seniors, youth and junior bowlers.

The QubicaAMF Bowling World Cup (begun in 1965) is recognized as bowling's largest event in terms of number of countries competing, according to the USBC in 2018.

The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Tour has held anywhere from 15 to 25 events annually in recent years, mainly at U.S. locations. The PBA Tour includes "major" championship events:

the U.S. Open, the USBC Masters, the PBA Tournament of Champions, the PBA World Championship, and the PBA Players Championship. Dozens more PBA tournaments are held in various U.S. geographical segments as part of the PBA Regional Tour.

The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) has various tournaments for the PBA tour, PWBA, youth and seniors, including the USBC Masters and U.S. Open (both major tournaments on the PBA tour), and USBC Queens and U.S. Women's Open (both major tournaments on the PWBA tour), plus the USBC Team USA Trials/U.S. National Amateur Bowling Championships. Additionally, the USBC has regional tournaments and certifies local tournaments.

The European Tenpin Bowling Federation (ETBF) owns the European Bowling Tour (organized in 2000), including its final tournament, the European Bowling Tour Masters (first edition: 2008).

The Commonwealth Tenpin Bowling Federation (CTBF), made up of World Bowling member federations within the Commonwealth of Nations, owns the Commonwealth Tenpin Bowling Championships, which has held tournaments at irregular intervals since 2002.

The Weber Cup is an annual, three-day US vs. Europe tournament, named after Dick Weber, that began in 2000 and has been held almost exclusively in the U.K.

In the decade of the 2000s, the World Ranking Masters, owned by World Bowling, ranked standings in the Pan American Bowling Confederation (PABCON), Asian Bowling Federation (ABF), and European Tenpin Bowling Federation (ETBF).

Though ten-pin bowling has not progressed beyond a demonstration sport at the Olympic Games, and the Pan American Games (governed by the Pan American Sports Organization, PASO). The Maccabiah Games (governed by the Israeli Bowling Federation, IBF, with events played according to WTBA-ETBF rules) host ten-pin tournaments as medal events.

Leagues

Bowling leagues vary in format, including demographic specialization (male, female, mixed, senior, youth),

number of bowlers per team (usually 3–5),

number of games per series (usually 3),

day and time of scheduled sessions,

starting dates and duration of league seasons,

scoring (scratch versus handicap), and

systems for bestowing awards and prizes.

Usually, each team is scheduled to oppose each of the other teams over the course of a season. Position rounds—in which the first place team opposes the second place team, third place opposes fourth place, and so on—are often inserted into the season schedule.

Customarily, team position standings are computed after each series, awarding a first number of points for each game won and a second number of points for achieving the higher team score for that series, the particular numbers being specified in each league's rules.

The number of league bowlers in the U.S. peaked at 8 million in 1980,

Most titles in a single PBA Tour season: Mark Roth (8 titles in 1978)
Most titles in a single PWBA Tour season: Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (7 titles in 2001)
First woman to win a PBA Tour event: Kelly Kulick (2010, PBA Tournament of Champions)
Most PBA Tour titles (career): Walter Ray Williams Jr. (47 titles, reached in 2010)
Most PWBA Tour titles (career): Lisa Wagner (32 titles, reached in 1999)
First to earn 100 combined titles in PBA Tour, PBA50 Tour and regional competition: Walter Ray Williams Jr. (2016)
Most PWBA Tour major titles (career): Liz Johnson (10, reached in 2017)
Only winners of a career "Super Slam" (all five PBA majors): Mike Aulby (1996) and Jason Belmonte (2020)

Earnings and contracts

First (in any sport) to receive $1,000,000 endorsement contract: Don Carter (1964, with Ebonite International)
First to earn more than US$100,000 in a single season: Earl Anthony (1975)
First female to earn more than US$100,000 in a single season: Lisa Wagner (1988)
First to earn US$1 million in career earnings: Earl Anthony (1982)
First female to earn US$1 million in career earnings: Aleta Sill (1996)
First to earn US$2 million in career earnings: Walter Ray Williams Jr. (1997).
First to earn US$3 million in career earnings: Walter Ray Williams Jr. (2002–03) and 2021 PBA Players Championship (won by Kyle Troup)

Youngest

Youngest to win a standard PBA Tour title: Norm Duke (1983, at age 18 years, 345 days)
Youngest to earn cash in a PBA Tour event: Kamron Doyle (age 14, 2012 U.S. Open)
Youngest to win a PBA Tour major tournament: Anthony Simonsen (2016 USBC Masters at age 19 years, 39 days)
Youngest to win a standard PWBA Tour event: Jillian Martin (2021 PWBA BowlTV Classic at age 17 years, 16 days)
Youngest to win a PWBA Tour major event: Wendy Macpherson (1986 U.S. Women's Open at age 18 years, 69 days)

Oldest

Oldest to win a standard PBA Tour title: John Handegard (1995, at age 57 years, 139 days)
Oldest to win a PBA Tour major tournament (that was classified as a major when it took place): Pete Weber (2013 Barbasol Tournament of Champions at age 50 years, 222 days)

Perfect (300) game history

thumb|right | A USBC "300 game" gold ring

Ernest Fosberg (East Rockford, Illinois) bowled the first recognized 300 in 1902, before awards were given out.

On January 7, 2006, Elliot John Crosby became the youngest British bowler to bowl a BTBA-sanctioned 300 game at the age of 12 years, 2 months and 10 days, breaking the 1994 record of Rhys Parfitt (age 13 years, 4 months).

On November 17, 2013, Hannah Diem (Seminole, Florida) became the youngest American bowler to bowl a USBC-certified 300 game at the age of 9 years, 6 months and 19 days, breaking the 2006 record of Chaz Dennis (age 10) and the 2006 female record of Brandie Reamy (age 12).

Jeremy Sonnenfeld (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) rolled the first certified 900 series in 1997. A well-publicized court-contested 900 series by Glenn Allison in 1982, considered by many to be the first-ever 900 series, was denied certification due to non-conforming lane conditions.

"Score inflation" controversy

thumb|The number of sanctioned perfect (300) games per league bowler has increased substantially since the 1990s. Freeman and Hatfield posit that the increase in perfect games is due to factors such as the introduction of reactive resin coverstocks, asymmetric ball cores, synthetic lane surfaces, and precision lane oiling machines.

The 905 perfect games that were rolled during the 1968–69 season increased 38-fold to 34,470 in the 1998–99 season. The USBC Technical Director wrote that the "USBC is concerned that technology has overtaken player skill in determining success in the sport of bowling," announcing in 2007 the completion of a ball motion study undertaken "to strike a better balance between player skill and technology".

thumb | Automatic lane oiling machines can be programmed to lay down oil patterns of different levels of difficulty. "[[Glossary of bowling#Typical house shot|Typical house shots" enable higher scores than the more challenging "sport shots".]]

Separately, a USBC pin carry study completed in about 2008 found that dramatically increased entry angles improve pin carry to result in higher scores—regardless of whether the bowlers supplied additional effort or improved their skill. Among the factors allowing higher scores were technological advances in coverstock and core design combined with improved lane surfaces and accommodative oil patterns.

Specifically, the reactive resin balls and particle balls that came out in the 1990s increased frictional engagement with the lane to provide greater hook potential that made high entry angles easier to achieve. Technological progress allowed some 1990s league scores to surpass those of professionals in the 1950s.

As a result of various USBC studies, including a bowling technology study published in February 2018, the USBC Equipment and Specifications Committee established new specifications focusing mainly on balls.

In media

Coverage of events

Beginning in 1962, ABC's Pro Bowlers Tour was broadcast on Saturday afternoons and an aging audience for TV bowling. A 2006 PBA article describing the PBA bowlers in the documentary A League of Ordinary Gentlemen called bowling athletes "the Rodney Dangerfields of professional sports".

Former PBA Commissioner Mark Gerberich said that ABC paid the PBA $200,000 per broadcast in 1991, but by 1997 "we were paying $150,000 to stay on TV." Said to be "near bankruptcy" in 2000, In September 2019, Bowlero Corporation purchased the PBA.

Portrayal on television

Particular television broadcasts include:

1950s: The Honeymooners (1952); Championship Bowling (1952).
1960s: Make That Spare; premiere episode of The Flintstones (1960-1966); Jackpot Bowling (1959-1961).
1990s: The Simpsons; The Drew Carey Show (annual contest);
2000s: According to Jim; Let's Bowl! (on Comedy Central: bowling to settle court disputes); Malcolm in the Middle.
2020s: How We Roll (2022)

In print

In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Professor Albus Dumbledore is a fan of ten-pin bowling.

Non-fiction films

Strikes and Spares (1934) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Novelty Short.

Pin Gods (1996) presents the early challenges of three young bowlers breaking into professional bowling.

The PBS Independent Lens documentary A League of Ordinary Gentlemen (2006) chronicles the stories of four PBA Tour bowlers at different stages of their careers, following the purchase of the PBA and appointment of former Nike executive Steve Miller as Director.

Fiction films

In the animated short cartoon The Bowling Alley-Cat (1942), cat and mouse Tom and Jerry do battle inside a bowling center.
In Dreamer (1979), Tim Matheson plays a man aspiring to be a professional bowler who faces a challenger played by Dick Weber.

In Greedy (1994), Michael J. Fox plays an "honest but luckless pro bowler with a bad wrist and a good woman."

The Farrelly brothers' comedy Kingpin (1996) is a bowling comedy about which Randy Quaid said in an interview, "If we can't laugh at bowling, what can we laugh at?" in which John Goodman's character pulls out a gun to threaten a competitor who stepped over the foul line and refused to accept the mandatory zero score for the shot.

Games

:See also Bowling video games.

thumb|right| The inventor of this 1870 patent claims to have "invented a new and useful adaptation of the old and favorite Game of Ten-Pins ... rendered available for parlor or indoor use".

What is believed to be the first bowling video game was released in the 1977, a built-in provided with the RCA Studio II console.

Publications

USBC, Equipment Specifications and Certifications Division.
Study began in 2005. Publication date is estimated based on article content.
(date is estimated)