There is an interesting open survey popping up all over the Internet that references a possible combined United States Bowling Congress Open Championships and Women’s Championships in a permanent site in either Reno or Las Vegas.
But USBC says it is not behind the survey, which you can take here.
“The survey is being conducted by University of Massachusetts graduate students,” Jason Oversetreet, USBC managing director of communications, said in an email. “As you know, graduate students at major universities work on research projects as part of their degree program. There was interest from these students in doing research on bowling. They looked at several USBC programs and decided this was a good topic.”
If nothing else, the grad students are good at picking out a hot-button topic.
USBC did not solicit the students to do the survey and is not paying them, although it is sending it out on their behalf, Overstreet said.
“There is really not much else to add at this stage other than we appreciate the interest from the University of Massachusetts and welcome any data or analysis they can provide,” Overstreet said.
So if you’re worried that this is part of an imminent move to permanently put the two tournaments together in Reno, you can relax.
Both tourneys will be in Reno in 2013 and 2014, but not at the same site.
This isn't to say that it won’t happen, but it’s not a train heading down a fast track.
And if you want to try to help derail whatever train it might be, you can take the survey.
I do suspect, though, that if a permanent site were built in Vegas for the tournament many, many bowlers would be quite happy — the 17,200 team entries in Vegas in 2009 were behind only the 17,285 in Reno in 1995, the first year at the National Bowling Stadium.
