A better way to judge it would be to ask "was the money well spent for the result we got?".
The answer is no.
Yes it was great to see a tourney in Australia with good prize money and I would have been happy to win it if I had bowled. Did it benefit bowling in any great way - no.
The bowlers who support tourneys like this and can afford to go to it benefit. The average league bowler got nothing out of that wasted money, not a single thing. The average social bowler got nothing either. Those 2 are the bread and butter of the sport, they are what keeps it alive, not the top 1% who bowl in the ranked tourneys.
If you get 5000 people turning up to tourneys that is still only a low % of the bowling community.
Unfortunately many of those who are in that top 1% are also the ones who will defend it on here.
I would rank it as a success for a fledgling event of this caliber in Australia. Could more have been done, for sure, I think a lot more promotion wise could have been done for the event, am not sure what plans they had in place but from early on it was known mens bowlers from around the world wouldnt be attending, so possible promotion down that path wasnt possible.
Wayne may have a valid point (just said again in a way to try and be controversial) in terms of financial success but I highly doubt that in reality AMF would have taken that big a hit on this event, I wouldnt be surprised if they made money and good on them if they did.
I would say if they got 3000 entries, that is a success in entries, cant recall a nationals attracting that much interest and entries.
Could the money have been used elsewhere, well for what? To support a tournament circuit that hardly anyone bothers to support or lump all that money into one big tournament and get the countries best and some of OS best bowlers to attend. It isnt AMFs role to create more numbers in the sport but events like this can certainly help if done right.
What does the average league bowler get out of any tournaments held anywhere unless they are locals and have a crack, what do social bowlers get out of tournaments? It doesnt matter if AMF sink this money into 10 different tournaments or one, either way it only affects regular tournament bowlers. League bowlers are the bread and butter of centres but not the sport unless they are looking to increase their skills and take the next step towards tournaments, social bowlers are there for recreation and dont see the game as a sport, so really the direction bowling should always be taking is to get those average league bowlers more interested in the tournament scene, more interested in increasing their skills and understanding of the game and also trying to change the average publics perception of the sport as a whole. A tournament like this can help do that with the right promotion, how many other sports on a local level like this have that sort of prizemoney attached to it for a national title? That sort of money might change peoples perspectives.
As for this tournament being affordable to enter, I thought that it was, entries were 35 each, i entered 7 events in total plus all events, then masters entry fee, a couple of nights accom worked cheap enough a night staying with a group, plus a bit of food and it worked out to about the same as attending a normal tournament. I drove back and forth a couple of times as it was fortunately in the same state.
And yes 5000 bowlers might only be a small part of the total bowling community, but the tournament scene is even less than that, so to attract so many entries from all grades, groups and states in one place over 3 weeks is a pretty big effort. Now hopefully AMF will continue their support and the event can be an even bigger success next year.
