If you love bowling, read this, from Randy Brown Friends, I’m asking a big favor of you. For starters, this is going to be a really long post, so I’m begging your indulgence just to read it. Yeah, I know; some of you don’t like long posts. But please bear with me this one time. I promise, there’s something in this for you, too. And I think you’ll be interested. As some of you may already know, I have spent the last 40+ years of my life in broadcasting, and I work today as a voiceover artist. Yeah, depending on the market you live in, I may be that voice on your radio that says silly things like, “The best mix of the ‘80s, ‘90s and now…” As Bugs Bunny once said, “Eh, it’s a living.” And as some of you may know, I’ve also been a bowling video collector for several years and have a YouTube channel (BowlingOldies) with over 200 vintage clips of pro bowling and vintage stars of bowling that date all the way back to the 1930s up through the modern era. My BowlingOldies channel has received over 2.5 million views and has over 1,600 subscribers. I’ve been around bowling all my life ever since I was a kid growing up at the dawn of the automatic pinsetter era. For five years in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, I was a PBA member, never with the intent of touring (I already had a career, thanks), but just so I could realize my childhood dream of competing with the best. Despite a lengthy (30 year) hiatus from actively participating in the game, bowling has never been far from my heart. Indeed, my heart is why I got back into bowling. In the aftermath of open heart surgery nearly three years ago and some complications in my recovery, I thought it best to give up golf in favor of a sport that isn’t contested in 90 degree searing heat in the Summertime. In my lifetime, the game of bowling has given me far more than I will ever be able to give back. But through a most unexpected twist of fate, I have recently had an opportunity to give something back to our game through my involvement in a project that seemed to be, if you’ll excuse the pun, right up my alley. For the past year, I’ve been working with an Academy Award-winning filmmaker named Don Barrett. In addition to his credentials in the film arena, Don has also been around the block a few times in television, having worked with such luminaries as Johnny Carson, Dick Clark and others too numerous to mention. How he stumbled upon me is a whole ‘nother story for another time, but suffice it to say he shares my — indeed, he shares OUR — love for bowling. Like me, Don grew up in the era of the Dick Webers and Don Carters and Ray Bluths of our game, and was weaned on TV shows like Championship Bowling, Bowling Stars, Make That Spare, Jackpot Bowling, and other similar shows that helped the sport of bowling become ubiquitous in American popular culture. Don has created a feature-length documentary about the evolution of bowling that contains interviews that he conducted with 50 touring pros, 21 of whom are in the PBA Hall of Fame. Among those interviewed were Jason Belmonte, Pete Weber, Chris Barnes, Sean Rash, Norm Duke, Parker Bohn III, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Kelly Kulick, Carmen Salvino, Randy Pedersen, and more. Many of these interviews cover subjects that have never been discussed on television. Some reveal a human side of these players that has never been shown to a national audience. But the real stars of the show are the video and film clips from the PBA, Championship Bowling, Bowling Stars, and even some material that dates back as far as the early 1930s, telling the story of how bowling became part of Americana. But as much as the film delves into bowling’s history, it also digs as deeply into where the game is today, the challenges it faces, and the way forward into the future. This project has the full support of the PBA and Commissioner Tom Clark. We had every intention of having the film ready for airing during ESPN’s telecast of the upcoming World Series of Bowling. Everything was moving forward exactly as planned. The final step before post-production (editing of the raw footage into a sequence that would comprise the actual finished movie) was to get the narration done. Randy Pedersen and I were set to narrate the film. The recording session for the two of us to lay down the voice tracks for the narration was already scheduled. Randy and Don were ready to fly into Atlanta, their hotel rooms were booked, and they were both scheduled to come to my home to record the voice tracks for the movie right here in my home recording studio the week of Labor Day. But then, just before the session was about to happen, the project hit a show-stopping roadblock. Don had been told that the licensing fee for the use of ABC-TVs clips of Pro Bowlers Tour would be waived by ABC Television, since the documentary was intended for airing on ABC’s cable sports channel, ESPN. But rather than waiving the fees or licensing the clips for a nominal $1.00 fee (commonly done in similar circumstance), ABC/Disney instead has insisted on being paid a whopping $820,000 for the licensing of these video clips. Obviously, the project has been halted in its tracks unless there’s a break in this impasse. Up to this point, Don has absorbed all the expenses for this project out of pocket because, well, frankly, telling bowling’s story has been a labor of love for him, a project he had on his bucket list before he was ready to call it a career. Understandably, he’s not prepared to write a check for $820,000 to license these clips. But without them, this film cannot even go to post-production. If completed, the film will not only promote professional bowling, which viewers can only watch on ABC/Disney’s own ESPN for most of the year, but also celebrates the history of one of America’s most beloved sports — a history that is inextricably linked to ABC Television. For reasons that defy logic, the PBA long ago negotiated away their rights to the ABC-TV recordings of their own tournaments. What this means is that these clips are now the property of ABC/Disney, and ABC/Disney is now holding hostage an enormous portion of our sport’s history in its archival vault while having the gall to make ransom demands for its release. This is outrageous and flies in the face of everything we know to be common business practice in media and the world of filmmaking, not to mention what most of us would agree is common sense and decency. And frankly, it is also a slap in the face to the PBA and to every bowling fan who has ever sat in front of a TV set to watch a professional bowling telecast on ABC. I can personally vouch for what this film promises to be, as I have played a key role in providing Don with research material and guidance toward existing video clips and story lines relating to our game’s history. But it is Don Barrett himself who has had the truly inspiring vision of the story this film will tell. He gets it. He understands where the sport came from, how it has evolved in the television era, how modern technology has changed the game, how scoring has spun out of control as a result, and what needs to be done to remedy the situation, and frankly, to save our sport. Don has captured bowlings inside, untold story from the mouths of the people who live it day-to-day and who earn their living from it — the people who have the greatest stake in bowling’s survival and future success. It would be a shame if all the hours spent in collecting this material, all the miles spent traveling and filming interviews and gathering information and capturing bowling’s biggest stars on-camera laughing, crying, telling stories that we’ve never heard, sharing profound insights and organizing this material into story form all went up in smoke, never to see the light of day, never to be shown anywhere to anyone at any time. To have come this far only to stop short of completing the film would be an outrage to any bowling aficianado if they knew all that went into it, only to get this close and then shut the project down. As I have said to a handful of friends who know of my involvement in this project, it promises to be “the documentary to end all documentaries on the sport of bowling. But that’s where this project sits right now. It’s on hold pending a change in the status of ABC/Disney’s demands for $820,000 in rights fees. Unless ABC/Disney moves off the dime and makes their historical archive of professional bowling telecasts, aka “Pro Bowlers Tour” clips, available to the PBA and to this project, the film — Bowling Wars — will never be completed. And that, my friends, would be a huge loss for bowling. At a time when our sport can ill-afford any more setbacks, just when someone has come along who has the credentials to tell bowling’s story in a compelling, contemporary and entertaining way that will reach across generational and cultural boundaries, I just hate to think that this project will fail to get across the finish line. But there might be a way to push it forward. Those of us who truly love the sport of bowling have a unique opportunity right now to do something that can help bring our sport’s story to the masses and shine a new light on it. Here’s the favor I am asking of you: If you want to see this project brought to television, please go to https://r.espn.go/members/contact/tvindex . When you get to this page, there will be a form to fill out. It will ask for your name, city, state, zip code, country and email address. Then it will ask what you’re writing about. Tell it you have a suggestion about something on ESPN and provide your satellite or cable provider. Under “Category” choose “Movies/Documentary.” Under “Item,” choose “Other.” And under “Topic,” choose “Other.” Then under “Subject” type, “Bowling Wars.” (That’s the name of this film.) In the field called “Message,” feel free to write your own message, asking ABC/Disney to make the clips from “Pro Bowlers Tour” available to the filmmaker who is producing a documentary called “Bowling Wars” AND TELL THEM YOU WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE “BOWLING WARS” ON ESPN! Or just copy the following message and paste it in the box: “I have recently learned of a documentary called Bowling Wars that is going to post-production but has been held up by ABC/Disney’s demand for exorbitant licensing fees for video clips that originally aired on ABC-TV’s long-running series Pro Bowlers Tour.” These clips are part of bowling’s and the PBA’s history. Please, ABC/Disney: Release these clips so we bowling fans (who, by the way, are viewers of ESPN) can relive the history of our sport and hear its story told. Please stop holding hostage our sport’s history in your archival vault in return for ransom demands. Those “Pro Bowlers Tour” telecasts provided live coverage of actual American sporting events. They aired over what the FCC has deemed to be public airwaves.” As such, this content belongs to all of us. I want to see “Bowling Wars” on ESPN. Please release the clips!” If the form presents you with the opportunity to mark it as “URGENT,” please do so. Remember, our goal is to get this program ready for air as part of the World Series of Bowling telecasts that are fast approaching. Or, if you feel so inclined, you can send them a letter via postal mail at the following address: ESPN ESPN Viewer Response ESPN Plaza Bristol, CT 06010 Friends, I know this is a big ask. You’ve already done a lot just by reading this far. And a letter writing campaign might even be a long shot. But here’s the deal: A letter writing campaign has worked before. The most famous example is when Star Trek was set for cancellation after its first season. Then a letter writing campaign organized by screenplay writer Dorothy Fontana prompted the network to rethink its decision to cancel, and the rest, as they say, is television history. The network knows full well that each email or letter that it receives represents thousands of other like-minded people who agree with what’s in the letter, but are not inclined to go to the trouble to send one of their own. If a couple hundred people were to write in, chances are good that the leverage will change and you might actually get to see this remarkable program that we’ve been working for months to bring you….that DON has been working ‘round-the-clock for months to bring you. For the record, and in full disclosure, I have offered my services as a voiceover talent to Don on this project totally pro bono out of my love for our game. I was flattered that he asked, and was only too happy to provide my voiceover work simply for the privilege of being a part of this awesome project. I will receive no financial compensation from my participation in this project. The only thing I will get out of it, should the project move to completion, is the honor of having my voice used in the narration and my name in the film’s credits. I appreciate you taking the time to read all the way to the end of this missive. Now, if you feel moved to act (and I hope you do), please go to the link I provided above and act now while it’s fresh on your mind. Thanks!
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 05:12:30 +0000
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