In 1970 the Professional Bowlers Association hit its peak: the richest purse on tour, the deepest season it ever ran, a locked TV slot. The same five things were already three cracks.
At Riviera Lanes in Fairlawn, Ohio, Don Johnson threw a 299 to beat Dick Ritger 299 to 268 and win the $100,000 Firestone Tournament of Champions and its $25,000 top prize, a purse identical to the tournament’s first hundred-thousand-dollar year in 1965, when Billy Hardwick won it. The 1970 season ran thirty-five events, the deepest schedule the tour had ever fielded, feeding into the PBA’s standing Saturday slot on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, running since 1962. Nelson Burton Jr. took Player of the Year honors with four titles, Dave Soutar out-titled him with five, and Mike McGrath defended the PBA National Championship for back-to-back wins. Sports Illustrated had already compared bowler Harry Smith’s earnings to Sandy Koufax’s back in 1963, a line the sport’s own coverage kept repeating for a decade after.
Underneath all five was Eddie Elias, the non-bowler lawyer and sports agent who founded the PBA in 1958 and ran its schedule, television deal, and purses while simultaneously running his own sports agency, Eddie Elias Enterprises, out of the same Akron office. The tour’s whole broadcast leaned on one network with no backup: ABC carried the PBA from 1962 to a final telecast on June 21, 1997, then never renewed. And the marquee purse that looked like proof of the sport’s arrival in 1970 had