By BILL SNIER
LORAIN — Damon Sarrocco has seen the growth of the Professional Women’s Bowling Association since its rebirth in 2015.
The 54-year-old Fairlawn resident serves as the PWBA’s director of operations, but is quick to add that overseeing the tour is a “collaborative effort” with brand manager Robin Graves among other staff members.
After working at Stonehedge Family Fun Center in Akron, Sarrocco was hired by the Professional Bowlers Association first as media manager and then as assistant tournament manager before moving on to join Ebonite International for 14 years. After that, he became part of the United States Bowling Congress administrative staff in 2014.
In 2015, professional women’s bowing returned following a 13-year hiatus with the USBC and the Bowling Proprieators Association of America (BPAA) joining forces to run PWBA Tour operations.
Sarrocco then moved into his new role, overseeing PWBA Tour logistics, event management, scheduling and operational execution.
We sat down and talked to Sarrocco during the recent PWBA Greater Cleveland Regional at Rebman Recreation. This discussion came before a story appeared earlier this we ek at Heavy Sports (https://heavy.com/) which contained a discussion with new Professional Bowlers Association chief executive officer Peter Murphy.
In the story,, Murphy said the PBA is making an investment in women’s bowling, having women compete against the men before launching its own league — PBAW — in 2028.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t support women. And so, next year, we will probably launch PBAW, and those women will be competing in the same events as men, and in an ongoing series or an ongoing tournament, where it’s win and advance and lose and go home, no different than the fight game, where you have men and women on the card,” Murray said in the story.
Murray also said in the story that PBA is looking to incorporate sports betting into its product.
“We will be launching, in 2027, the first-ever PBA betting product platform, and that’ll be global,” Murray told Heavy Sports.
The PWBA, meanwhile, already has set its 2027 schedule, which includes events at eight locations, including three each during the Summer Series in Green Bay, Wis., and three more during Tour Championship Week in Orlando, Fla. The schedule begins May 6, 2027.
In addition, there are 10 events on the PWBA Regional schedule, which begins in March 2027, including at regional stop Oct. 3 in Akron at Station 300.
Here is our discussion with Sarrocco (some content is edited for brevity):
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SOB: PWBA does not allow regular tour players in its regional events. Can you explain that?
DS: If Stephanie Johnson is on the roster, it will deter ladies from signing up because they feel they can’t beat Stephanie. The same with Diana Z (Zavjalova). There may be six to eight to 10 ladies are not going to play because they can’t beat Diana Z. That’s plain and simple … they feel they can’t beat those champions. The other part is we are trying to grow women’s professional bowling so we want as many ladies as possible. What we don’t want to do is deter them from coming out. We also say is you have averaged 180 at any time in your bowling career, come play in a regional. That’s it.
SOB: You’ve seen the ELITE idea of the PBA. Do you ever see the PWBA doing anything like that?
DS: No … I don’t see us getting there. We are owned and funded by the USBC and the BPAA and we know the national tour takes a lot of funding. I don’t see the regional program expanding. Five or 10 years down the road if we have a private entity that wants to take it over, maybe, but under the current situation, no. The nine regionals we have is what we have.
SOB: So regional program will remain as it is for 2027?
DS: Nine in 2027 and I’m already starting 2028 and it will be the same process again.
SOB: How many regular PWBA Tour events are there in 2027?
DS: We’ll hand out 12 titles, including one of those being a doubles. But we have two weeks where there is a series. The first one is Summer Series, where we hand out three titles in one week. The other is Championship Week where we also hand out three, but only two are open Tour events, but you have to qualify for the final one. So we hand out six titles in two weeks. We also have the USBC Queens and the U.S. Open is in there and then we have three other standard events.
SOB: No Ohio stops for the first time in years. Is there a reason for that (it had been in Parma Heights the last several years)?
DS: It just worked out that way. I try to move them around. I’m working two years ahead. If you go back to early 2025, we had membership then and a lot of PTQs then. The ladies didn’t understand why they had to bowl PTQs. Well, if they didn’t have a title and were not in the top 15 points or a hall of famer, they bowled it. They said we just don’t understand. Well, ladies, if we can find bigger centers that are not owned by Bowlero, we would be more than happy to deal with you. Robin and I pulled off a hat trick for 2027. East Providence Lanes is 60 lanes, no PTQ there. Delaware is geographically positioned exceptionally well because the next week, the Queens, is in North Carolina. Rhode Island to Delaware to North Carolina. Green Bay, Lansing, Mich., and Orlando, Fla. … some how some way, four of the five centers are 60 lanes ore better so no PTQs.
SOB: Standard fields are around what right now?
DS: They average, depending on where it is at, 85ish.
SOB: How many advance through for the PTQs?
DS: Depends on where it is out. We do one at Rockford, Ill., it’s almost full. … We could have 110 ladies in Rockford if we could. We guarantee 10 spots for the event.
SOB: Has membership fallen off the past couple of years?
DS: We don’t have memberships anymore. There’s nothing. Just come bowl. There is no determination between part-time and full-time Tour professionals. In the old days we had TP1 and TP2 designations. We don’t need to have that. Somebody asked who’s a professional and who’s not? Tournaments for me, I don’t care. I don’t need to define. As long as you average 190 or better come out and bowl, 180 or better for regional events. So I don’t have a definition as to what it means to be a professional.
SOB: National Tour players can’t bowl in a regional, correct?
DS: If you have a national title, you can’t bowl. But even if you bowled each stop, like Summer Jasmin has done this season, and have not won a national title, even though she’s good enough to have won, she can bowl the regionals. One caveat, if your title is more than 15 years ago, you can bowl in a regional. In Oklahoma for instance, Anne Marie Duggan bowled and Lynda Barnes came up and bowled. Both are Hall of Famers, but if they are on the roster, the ladies will still come out and bowl. And as a proprietor, who wouldn’t want Lynda or Anne Marie in the building? Also in Colorado, Tish Johnson bowled.
SOB: Since USBC took over, there was a 13-year hiatus from the ending of the Ladies Professional Bowlers Tour. Has it changed a lot?
DS: I went to USBC in fall of 2014 and helped with the relaunch in 2015 along with Jason Thomas and others. That year we just wanted to have women bowl. We were paying 32 spots no matter what. We just wanted women to come out and bowl. Let’s just get women back out here, and we were successful at doing that. Its morphed … it’s changed, formats have changed, amount of titles have kind of sort of changed. We’re kind of in a sweet spot now with 12 titles, one being a doubles. The prize money is what it is. Athletes want to bowl for more, but everyone wants to do that. If you can find a way for us to generate more income, please pass it along and we’ll be happy to listen.
SOB: What about TV rights?
DS: We’re on BowlTV and being simulcast on BowlingTV. I think that’s the plan moving forward. Two live TV shows next year with the Queens and the U.S. Women’s Open and Tour Championship, with the former two on CBS Network tentatively. We haven’t announced our broadcast schedule at this point, but whenever we have approached them, they have not said no to this point.
SOB: What are the hopes for the future of the PWBA?
DS: Just to continue it. It’s a three-year deal. The USBC and BPAA boards get together and vote on it and it’s either approved or not for the next three years. I don’t see it going away, raegardless what has to happen to keep it alive. We need an inspirational aspirational model. Young ladies need to inspired to aspire. And if we don’t have a Tour … for 13 years there were girls who graduated from college and had nothing to go play. There were a dozen ladies who could have won more tities. Leanne Barrette could be in the 30s without even thinking about it, Anne Marie Duggan … it’s just crazy. I don’t see it going away. Could it morph into something else … formats might change but that’s OK. But we have the rights to the PWBA logo and we are handing out regional and Tour titles. If you win enough of those, you can gso into the Hall of Fame … the PWBA Hall of Fame. Small changes we can do, but big changes have to go through the ladder to the board of directors. Like Green Bay last year during Junior Gold. The board decided they wanted an arena finals, and we adapted to it.