The United States Bowling Congress Open Championships will debut a new daily squad schedule starting with the 2025 event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to continue to accommodate for recent growth at the tournament.
The new schedule will feature five squads of competition across each day, with two full team events and six bowlers on a pair for each doubles and singles squad.
The adjustments will increase the capacity of the event to meet the growing participation demands at the USBC Open Championships.
The daily squad schedule for the 2025 Open Championships will be:
- 7 a.m. – doubles and singles
- 11:30 a.m. – team
- 3:15 p.m. – doubles and singles
- 7:45 p.m. – team
- 11:30 p.m. – doubles and singles
The changes will remove combined squads from the schedule (team and doubles/singles being contested during the same squad time) and alleviate the concern of bowling a late team event, followed by an early doubles and singles squad the next day.
With the new schedule, bowlers on the 11:30 a.m. team squad will bowl either the 7 a.m. or 3:15 p.m. squad for doubles and singles. Competitors on the 7:45 p.m. team squad will bowl doubles and singles either at 3:15 p.m. or 11:30 p.m.
At the 2023 Open Championships, one out of eight bowlers participated in team during the 9:30 p.m. combined squad and followed with doubles and singles the next morning at 7 a.m.
The current schedule at the Open Championships has often left new participants and those entering later in the registration process with a limited inventory for team squad selection. The new schedule in 2025 will give competitors the chance to select from two desirable squad times and increase the overall capacity for the event to more than 13,400 teams. With the current schedule, the maximum capacity over the same time frame would accommodate 10,430 teams.
The Open Championships has seen steady growth in its team entries as well, with many of the numbers surpassing the totals from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2024 event in Las Vegas already has surpassed 10,700 registered teams, marking the highest total at the South Point Bowling Plaza since its introduction to the tournament’s schedule in 2017 and is the most overall at the Open Championships since 2012.
Coordinators for the 2024 event also were surveyed to see how many teams they planned to register for the 2025 Open Championships. The early projections from the collected data show team entries for Baton Rouge trending up by nearly 3%.
In 2013, the Open Championships began providing fresh oil for every squad. This change improved the competition, but the time needed to oil for each squad reduced the number of potential squads per day.
“We listened to the feedback from our participants and believe these adjustments will help create an improved experience, with two full team squads at premium times and eliminating the short turnaround from team to doubles and singles,” USBC Executive Director Chad Murphy said. “These adjustments also will allow us the flexibility to welcome more teams and continue to see the tournament grow as we look ahead to the future.”
For more information on the USBC Open Championships, visit BOWL.com/OpenChamp.
United States Bowling CongressThe United States Bowling Congress serves as the national governing body of bowling as recognized by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC). USBC conducts championship events nationwide including the largest participation sporting events in the world – the USBC Open and Women's Championships – and professional events such as the USBC Masters and USBC Queens.
Founded in 1895, today USBC and its 1,493 state and local associations proudly serve more than a million members. USBC is headquartered in Arlington, Texas, working toward a future for the sport. The online home for USBC is BOWL.com.
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