Professional Bowlers Association Website Visits Up 25%

Traffic to the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA)’s official website, pba.com, increased by 25 percent during the 2009-10 season compared to a year earlier, and additional improvements and features under development now are expected to advance visitor traffic even more in the months ahead.

Beginning with the inaugural PBA World Series of Bowling in suburban Detroit 
last August, and continuing through the conclusion of the 2009-10 season in 
April, the PBA recorded 2,252,773 unique visitors, beginning with a 58 percent 
increase in traffic in August compared to the same period in 2008.

PBA.com’s biggest single day was Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010 – the day Kelly Kulick 
made sports history by winning the PBA Tournament of Champions. Kulick’s victory 
led to 50,647 unique visits that day.

Other major gains were recorded for January, February and March – including a 
significant spike during the USBC Masters when pba.com offered its 
subscriber-based Xtra Frame video streaming content on a “free preview” basis. 
More than 30,000 unique visitors watched all or part of the Masters. Additional 
high-traffic days were Sunday, Feb. 28, when Bill O’Neill won the Lumber 
Liquidators U.S. Open, and Sunday, March 28, when amateur Brian Zeisig won the 
GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship.

Individually, seven-time PBA Player of the Year Walter Ray Williams Jr. is 
pba.com’s “most sought after” player with 23,575 page views. Chris Barnes is 
second with 15,816 followed by Pete Weber (15,436), Kulick (14,898), Norm Duke 
(11,896), Parker Bohn III (9,173), Patrick Allen (9,062), Jason Belmonte 
(8,970), Wes Malott (8,723) and Tommy Jones (7,938).

“The PBA has made a number of additions and improvements to pba.com to inform, 
entertain and educate PBA fans,” said PBA Deputy Commissioner Tom Clark. “The 
site was re-designed to provide an attractive new design that’s easy on the eye 
and easy to navigate. It includes video and written content, interactivity and 
use of photography to capitalize on the great action the players provided for us 
during this past season.

"One of the most significant advances has been the re-introduction of Xtra Frame 
as essentially the PBA Network,” Clark added. “Xtra Frame provided its 
subscribers with insight into the PBA that was not available anywhere else. It 
included exclusive event coverage, interviews, bowling equipment discussion and 
explanations, instructional tips and a great deal more. The dramatic changes to 
Xtra Frame resulted in 120 percent growth in subscribers since August of 2009.”

Clark noted, however, that pba.com will continue to expand features for the 
bowling public. PBA.com already includes live scoring while tournaments are 
underway, player bios including complete year-by-year career histories for 
exempt players, several weekly blogs, a discussion forum and built-in comment 
features for fans, "In The News" links to PBA in the media, tournament 
information, free videos plus Xtra Frame.

More is on the planning board, Clark said. The PBA IT staff is currently 
restoring the archive of PBA Tour statistics and results dating back to the 
formation of the PBA; improving integration of social networking and search 
functions; working on an all-new design, customer interface and video delivery 
system for Xtra Frame, and upgrading on-line access to PBA records and 
statistics which will be updated as they change.

“PBA.com is an integral part of the PBA’s international communications network,” 
Clark said. “PBA fans around the world, young and old, male and female, have 
made pba.com what it is today.”

The international bowling community makes up about 16.5 percent of pba.com’s 
audience, Clark noted.