BATON ROUGE - Last week in this space I asked if this past Sunday’s Tournament of Champions would be the final PBA major on FOX Sports and after the show ended there was evidence that can be interpreted in a lot of ways after quotes attributed to Commissioner Tom Clark at the Hall of Fame banquet Friday in Akron, Ohio and then the comments of commentators Rob Stone and Randy Pedersen as Sunday’s show went off the air.

First of all, Rob Stone is FOX Sports’ main studio host for football, basketball and soccer so his appearances have been fewer of late on bowling but he has been there for some of the majors this year and it is obvious how much Stone and Pedersen enjoy working together.

That’s what made the final moments of the telecast interesting when Stone said as the show ended: “It’s a sport that means a lot to a lot of people – Jesper (event winner Jesper Svensson), to you (speaking of Pedersen), to me, to our crew and bowling is better with you (Pedersen) in my life my friend, I’ll tell you that.”

Randy responded: “Rob, our bowling on the PBA Tour was always better with you.” Stone’s reply as the show signed off was “We’re not going anywhere my friend.”

It was a touching salute to their many years together at both ESPN and FOX Sports.

But thanks to 11thframe.com editor/writer Jeff Richgels, here’s what Clark assured the membership at the Hall of Fame ceremony in part:

“The other thing that I want to talk about briefly that's been tough this year is next year,” Clark said. “We've all been a little bit, 'Well what's going to happen? We hear rumors. We hear things.' I'm here to tell you tonight — and this has been by the minute the work that's been going on by a lot of people involved — we're going to be OK.

“There are platforms out there that are very interested in us, that want to sign on the dotted line right now, and that will guarantee that there will be a PBA Tour in 2026 that you guys are going to be able to compete in, and all the people at home are going to be able to know it's going to happen. And we're going to be on platforms plural maybe that bring us into homes, maybe in some different ways, and others in more traditional ways. ... It's going to work out. And I wouldn't be telling you that if I didn't believe it. And it's been hard to say that this year, because there's been a lot of uncertainty.

“I'm saying it to you right now: We're going to be back in 2026.”

The words haven’t been exactly said but there are too many ways to see that the FOX-PBA marriage is probably ending after a nice, strong run.

But the season isn’t quite over as the Battle of the Brands is this weekend and then the PBA Playoffs which will take FOX/FS1 coverage into late May.

High School Bowling
Okay, if you’ve read my columns for years, you know I have never been a big fan of the current six player team format. But when you are fortunate to get an extremely close match like Brother Martin and Slidell in the DI finals that wasn’t decided until the very end, while it still doesn’t change my mind, it’s a match that I left feeling good about what I just saw.

It has to be said that it would have to be called a somewhat disappointing year for the Baton Rouge boys/coed teams. U-High was the only school to get to the semifinals in Division II and that proved to be an unexpected surprise as most of the top schools in the area came out of East Ascension parish and Premier Lanes, including two-time champion and state runner-up Dutchtown girls. We’ll have to see how things stack up next year to see if this was an aberration and if anyone can challenge the New Orleans area power house programs.

BTM Tournament With Nice Charity Element
Rick Ramsey and his BTM Tournament, which is also at All Star Lanes here as part of the USBC Open festivities, has a wonderful charity aspect from those that enter the Republic Finance mystery score jackpot as half the money goes to Camp Care 2025 for kids which is part of Cancer Services of Baton Rouge.

That’s a very cool thing in my opinion. It’s also very cool that bowlers who have participated in the events at All-Star have reached into their pockets and donated a little extra to help the total donation.

One final thought. It has really been great to see restaurants on their outside signs welcoming bowlers into their establishments and bowlers putting on Facebook the places they enjoyed visiting while in Baton Rouge for others coming to town to make note of. Still a long way to go for this tournament that ends in late July.

Until next Monday, good luck and good bowling.