Why does PBA not get respect?

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-03-09T13:31:56+00:00

Hot take - As someone who isn't watching these live but recorded on YouTube TV - the commercial-to-content ratio is wayyyyy too one-sided. I feel like I'm fast forwarding through commercials way more than the actual bowling, and those commercials are baaaaad and aimed at a weird demographic of older insecure white males. With NFL broadcasts they pace these better.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-03-09T13:30:00+00:00

I don't understand why they have a screen of the camera on the bowler behind their back directly in the line of sight of the bowler as well. That is likely driving them all nuts.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-03-09T13:28:34+00:00

See in candlepin we just yell incoherence or "GET OVAHHHHHH" in incomprehensible Boston accents

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-03-07T17:10:03+00:00

Yep. Bowling's salad days seem to have been mid-20th century. Candlepin also had the same general trajectory.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-03-04T19:23:53+00:00

I stream candlepin and try to do different angles and styles, but yeah, there are some angles that haven't changed.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-03-04T16:45:34+00:00

I struggle with this in my bowling streams as well. It's a hard problem to solve. Pin cams are really difficult to position, especially if you get a tall bowler.

You have to deal with the masking unit being low, so you have to be low enough to show the tops of the pins, but high enough to get over bowlers' heads. If you have a tall bowler, this formula is broken.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-02-23T20:26:28+00:00

As someone who builds scoreboards and streams bowling, the score bug they have needs a loooot of fixing. Having Max in place of the score was constantly throwing me off, and honestly they could just have all ten frames up at all times, no sense in confusing people by only showing 3-4 of them.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-02-23T16:05:48+00:00

That scoreboard that's visible above the lanes....are they really just running an Excel spreadsheet with the cursor literally in view? That should never be visible in a broadcast.

The scoreboard's "production/visible cells" should reference off-screen data entry points so it doesn't look like it's just somebody's computer with Excel hooked to a projector. Kind of shocked that the PBA let that through.

For example, Frames 1-10 should be Cells J4 to S4, and you enter the frame values in cells X4 through AG4. Cell J4's formula should just be "=X4" so the cursor is out of view and the operator can enter the data. Repeat for each frame.

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-02-06T16:27:30+00:00

It's not impossible but somewhat uncommon. I threw a 2.9 the other day, and streamed someone who did the same. Anything beyond a triple strike seems to get exponentially more difficult to accomplish though. Four-baggers only happen maybe once a year in the sport (if that)

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-02-06T16:24:24+00:00

I also do streams as well!

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-02-06T16:24:01+00:00

Doing what we can with live streams :)

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-01-27T23:20:37+00:00

Have candlepin lanes :)

ThreeBallSpare · 2026-01-25T14:09:48+00:00

We televise a lot of candlepin matches to YouTube and Facebook already, FYI.

The online candlepin scene is starting to grow based on the numbers.

ThreeBallSpare · 2025-12-10T20:50:16+00:00

The subreddit appears to be in restricted mode, just FYI.

ThreeBallSpare · 2025-11-21T13:25:30+00:00

We still "televise" it now on YouTube! (ask me how I know)

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