Interview with Bill Spigner

The fifth stop of the 2005 PBA National Tour, the Chicago Classic, was held at Hawthorn Lanes in Vernon Hills, Ill. Bowlingdigital has interviewed the owner, Bill Spigner, who has now hosted 20 PBA tournaments in his center.

The 56-year-old ABC Hall of Famer, married with two children, has won three PBA National titles from 1977 through 1981 - New England Open in Cranston, RI, 1977; Syracuse Open in Syracuse, NY, 1978; City of Roses Open in Portland, OR, 1981.

The 1979 ABC Masters runner-up also won an ABC eagle in the 1996 ABC Tournament Team All Events.


How did you become a bowling proprietor?
The reason I am at Hawthorn Lanes and was able to get involved in ownership was because of my playing the tour and meeting my wife Barb. My bowling roots are from the tour and with the experience of playing the tour I knew the value of hosting and promoting the best bowlers.

How many pro tour events have you hosted so far?
We opened Hawthorn Lanes November 25, 1989 and have hosted at least one PBA event every year. We have hosted 14 PBA regionals, one senior regional, one senior national tour event and 4 national tour events.

What is the difference between bowling and other sports?
Bowling is a great sport that is very hard for the uneducated bowler or person to understand. It's very easy to explain golf because you can see all variables. There are ways to hit each shot and train a player to do it because you can see it. If you are in a bunker there's a method to the shot that the player understands. I have been teaching bowling professionally for over 25 years and writing instructional articles for the same length of time.

What are your reasons for hosting pro tour events?
Having professional events gives me a great opportunity to expose bowlers to the best athletes in the world and watch them play on much more challenging conditions than the league bowler faces. I put out tour conditions at Hawthorn Lanes along with sport bowling condition for players to practice on and test their skills. Our league bowlers get exposed to this high level of competition and difficult lane conditions which helps them to understand the sport better.

How to get one of these events?
To get a PBA regional event is not hard. All you have to do is contact the PBA regional director in your area about hosting an event. The PBA is divided into seven regions with each region hosting their own events. Senior and Regular regional events combined there are over a 150 yearly.

How much does it cost to host a PBA event?
The host center has to pay the PBA around five thousand dollars to have a regional event. That money goes into the prize fund and to the PBA office to pay for expenses. The host center also has to donate the entire lineage to the pros.

The host center can recoup some of their expenses through the pro-am, food and beverage sales. Most of the centers that host a regional event do it for the promotion of their bowling center and to better the sport.

Is a PBA regional event interesting for your bowlers or customers?
The exempt tour players are allowed to bowl in these events. Because amateurs can play in the events, its gives the local bowlers the opportunity to bowl next to some of the players they see on TV. These events are unique because the amateur and PBA regional players can bowl with the Pete Weber's, Robert Smith's and Tommy Jones of the tour. There is no other professional sport where the average player can step on the field and play against and with the best in the world.

What is the format of a regional and when does it take place?
The regionals are weekend events, starting with a practice session and pro-am on Friday. The first round of qualifying is on Saturday, usually 8 games. The field is then cut to top one third of the field for Sunday. These bowlers return Sunday morning for 5 more qualifying games and then the field is cut to the top 16 players for elimination matches. The PBA Senior regional only cut to the top 16 for Sunday and its all elimination match play. The kids get to bowl 5 extra games to make the match play.

Does the host center has to provide the lane maintenance?
The lane conditions in the regionals are designed and applied by the PBA. The regions have there own lane machine and do all the lane maintenance. The senior regionals lane conditions are also designed by the PBA, but for the seniors the PBA has the bowling center oil the lanes with their oil and machine.

When did you host your first national event?
The national tour is a whole different animal. There are only 21 tour events and it's difficult to get one and it's a tremendous amount of work.
I hosted my first tour event in the summer of 2001 and it was a Senior Tour event. I had just turned 50 the fall of 1999 and thought it would be great to have a senior event. The tournament went very well and we had plans to do another senior event the next summer.

At about that time the PBA was completely restructured with Steve Miller as CEO. What do you think about Steve?
That year the PBA had new owners and they secured TV time with ESPN in the fall of 2001 and the winter of 2002 for 20 tournaments. I was curious about the new PBA and the CEO at the time Steve Miller was going to make a presentation to the players at the PBA Championships in Toledo Ohio (one of the PBA majors) in March of 2002. I read about Mr. Miller's background and wanted to see him in action. I was very impressed with his presentation to the players.

Hosting your first National Tour event caused some personal problems for you. What happened?
I had a commitment to host a senior event later in 2002 and inquired about hosting a National Tour event in the future. The PBA contacted me about hosting an event in the winter of 2003. I though we could do it because it would be seven to eight months after hosting the Senior Tour in August of 2002.

After having a number of conversations with the PBA they asked me if I would host a tour event in the fall of 2002. I said it would be impossible to do the senior tour and a National event so close together. They came back to me and said they would let me out of my contract to host the seniors if I would do a fall event.

That was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make in bowling. I am a senior player, and have a lot of friends on the senior tour and they had a great time bowling at Hawthorn Lanes the year before. After a lot of thinking I decided to take the PBA up on their offer. I thought if I didn't take the tour event then I might never get another chance because there were only 20 events at that time with a live ESPN TV broadcast.

What's the difference between hosting a regional or national Tour event?
The commitment to host a tour event is huge. The first tournament with everything cost me about $80,000. The cost included paying the PBA, canceling leagues, loss of open play bowling, printed materials, entry forms, advertising, labor, extra phone lines (12), added electricity, building bowling ball racks for the paddock and numerous miscellaneous expenses.

Can you make some money out of a National Tour stop?
Our income to offset expenses come from selling sponsorships, the pro am and gate receipts. The best I could judge the tournament probably cost us between 5 and 10 thousand dollars. For that amount of money we got live TV coverage, numerous articles in 5 newspapers, local TV coverage on the news, interviews of the players on some sports shows and all the good will. Our customers and staff at Hawthorn Lanes love having the pro tour. It's the hardest week of the year for our staff but the most fun.

The PBA has changed the host proprietor's commitment. What does that mean?
We are now partners with the PBA. We don't have to pay the PBA any money but we do have to guarantee ticket sales and pro am entries. Once you meet the minimums there is profit sharing. It's has taken some of the burden off of us but it's still a great deal of work.

Do you need more employees during the week or do they need to work more or longer? What is the most difficult task?
The hardest part of the week is tearing out 14 lanes of our equipment so the PBA can set up the stage for the TV show. On Friday night with our staff, the PBA staff and the ESPN TV crew there are about 25 people working to take out our equipment and set up all the seating and lights for TV. They work from 10pm until about 5am.

They return Saturday afternoon and work until about 3am Sunday morning setting. It's a small arena that is set up inside the bowling center. They totally transform the bowling center into a small arena. When people come in for the TV show they don't recognize the bowling center.

When the show is done they start tearing down the set and packing it into the three semi-trucks that will transport the equipment to the next tour stop. Our people now have to put all the equipment back into place, seating, ball returns, cosmic lighting, scoring units (upper and lower monitors). This project usually gets completed by mid afternoon on Monday.

Do you take a day or two off after the event is over?
At that time our crew is ready for a vacation. Unfortunately for all of us it's back to work like nothing has happened. We just have to catch up on the week's work that was set aside while the tournament was going on. It takes a couple of weeks for the staff to recuperate from the tour event.

Are you planning to host PBA Tour events in the future?
We will continue to host the tour as long as our employees are excited about doing it. If our key employees get burned out on it and want to take a break from doing it I will take some time off from hosting a tour event.

What does the PBA Tour mean to you personally?
For me, the tour is where I came from and it's an honor to have the best bowlers in the world on our lanes each year. The excitement level is very high in the weeks leading to the event, during and even for a good time after it. Its fun having people tell me their experiences at the tournament and how amazed they are how good the players are and how nice and approachable they are.

What is the difference when you bowled on the PBA Tour and today?
The new tour is very different than the tour I bowled on during the 70's and early 80's. I went out on tour at a very good time. I grew up watching Pro Bowlers Tour on ABC TV every Saturday afternoon from January through April. It's watching that and other bowling shows that made me want to be a professional bowler.

What were the requirements to become a professional bowler?
At that time you needed to average 190 to be eligible to join the PBA. You submitted an application to the PBA with your bowling resume and 3 letters of character reference from prominent people in your community. The PBA would review your application then accept or reject you for membership.

Tell us more about the life of a professional bowler at that time.
Once you became a member you could bowl any event you wanted just by signing up before the field filled. We had full fields almost every week with many of the events having 200 or more entries in the larger bowling centers. It's was easy to get out on tour but difficult to make money. I had the luxury of being able to bowl every week. You were able to work on your game, build and test it under real playing conditions. You bowled a minimum of 18 games each week in competition.

How would you describe the life of a modern professional bowler?
Today with the exempt field it's much more difficult to break in and develop your game under tour conditions. I do like the exempt tour. Back in the day when there were 200 entries, more than half the bowlers had no chance of cashing. Now when I look at the 58 players in the exempt field I don't see any bowler that's not good enough to make the cut to match play and have a chance to win. The field for the PBA exempt tour is just awesome. There are a lot of great players who are bowling the pre tournament qualifier to try and get in the tournament.

If you could choose today, would you become a PBA professional again?
The great thing about the exempt tour is if you earn an exemption you get paid a minimum of $2,000.00 a week. When I went out on tour they paid 1/3rd of the field. It was actually easy for me to cash because there were a lot of spots paid. But it was hard to make the cut to the top 24 and even harder to make the top 5 for TV. I would definitely do it again given the opportunity.

Would you recommend top level amateurs to join the PBA?
It's very difficult to make it, but if you can there is definitely a good life out there on tour. You have to take it very seriously and treat it as a business. It's not fun and games. The fun and rewarding part of it is competing and winning.

Like the saying goes: WINNING NEVER GETS OLD.