If There's A God, Golf Is Next

Pro Bowling Enters a Rowdy New League
Decorum goes out the alley as the men's tour gets a makeover by new owners.

The players pump their fists and make risque gestures. During breaks, rock music blasts. And the latest corporate sponsor is Pernod-Ricard's Wild Turkey bourbon.

This is not your father's bowling league.

It is the new Professional Bowlers Assn., the men's pro tour refashioned by three former Microsoft Corp. millionaires who bought it for $5 million in 2000. Though the tour lost $8.4 million last year on revenue of $11.9 million, the Seattle-based PBA is moving toward profitability, they say.

"The show isn't so much about bowling as it is combat," said PBA Chairman Chris Peters, a former vice president at Microsoft, the world's largest software maker. "It's the victor versus the vanquished."

The tour's president and chief executive, Steve Miller, a former Nike Inc. marketing executive, threw out the 1940s rules requiring bowlers on the professional tour to have short haircuts, maintain a quiet atmosphere and reject corporate signage. Nowadays, the association encourages antics from bowlers such as Pete Weber, who points to his crotch after throwing a strike.