Next week the best bowlers in the world will meet in Middletown, Delaware for the first stop of the 2025 PBA Tour season. The top 43 players in 2024 PBA Tour points, along with the top 12 players from the PBA Tour Trials, earned priority entry for all 2025 PBA Tour events with no entry fee and eligibility for the PBA Elite League draft. Past champions will also be eligible to compete, while others will have to earn their spots through pre-tournament qualifiers (PTQs) for most tournaments.
One way for fans to get in on the action this season is to place wagers at BetRivers Sportsbook. They already have odds posted for the Delaware Classic, U.S. Open, Elite League: Battle of the Brands and Player of the Year award in many states. Keep your eyes open for other sportsbooks that may post PBA odds this year and follow along all season at RotoWire, where I'll be sharing my best bets for teach tournament.
Another way to take your fandom to the next level is to compete in a fantasy bowling league. Unfortunately, you're not going to find fantasy bowling leagues on ESPN, Yahoo, Fantrax or any of your other go-to fantasy platforms (yet). For now, I've outlined the easiest way for the ambitious bowling fan to start up a fantasy PBA league.
Establish Your League Rules
I recommend:
- # of teams: 10
- Player Pool: see players listed below. All are expected to compete in the PBA Delaware Classic except Santtu Tahvanainen. Refer to tournament rosters on pba.com each week to ensure your players are competing.
- Schedule: stats begin accumulating January 20th with the Delaware Classic and end on April 20th with the PBA Tournament of Champions finals
- Rosters: 5 bowlers
- Scoring: Entirely based on Tour points earned. Your goal is to draft the players that finish the season with the most combined Tour points. Your league's commissioner should provide updated standings after each event.
- Lineups: all players are "starting" each week. No bench but allow one "IR" spot so that if a player is not participating in a tournament for any reason, you can grab a replacement off waivers for that week.
- Transactions: trades and waiver wire pickups must be done before qualifying rounds start.
- Draft: Live auction style with a $100 budget.
You can certainly make modifications like adjusting the number of teams or the number of rostered bowlers. The key to any fair fantasy bowling league has to be the draft format. You can't have a snake draft, because based on the past two seasons, anyone with a top two pick would have a significant advantage by having the opportunity to draft E.J. Tackett or Anthony Simonsen. An auction draft solves that problem because it gives everyone an equal chance to pay up to draft the top players. But spend big on one of them, and you won't have the budget left to invest in the next tier of players who could potentially take a step forward in 2025.
Do Your Research and Build Your Cheat Sheet
To get you started, here are our auction values based on my projections, my own auction draft results and a $100 budget in a 10-team league with 5 bowlers rostered.
If you're going in with the plan to draft one of the top 5 players, be prepared to spend big!
Follow @RotowireBowling on X for more.
| Rank | Points | Player | Money | Events | Average | Titles | Cashes | Auction Value |
| 1 | 29,920.00 | E J Tackett | $265,792.00 | 19 | 230.06 | 2 | 16 | $90 |
| 2 | 22,030.00 | Anthony Simonsen | $235,850.00 | 18 | 225.33 | 3 | 14 | $88 |
| 3 | 18,815.00 | Jason Belmonte | $145,799.00 | 15 | 226.61 | 0 | 14 | $67 |
| 4 | 18,352.50 | Kyle Troup | $199,615.00 | 19 | 222.51 | 2 | 13 | $67 |
| 5 | 22,047.50 | Marshall Kent | $210,158.00 | 17 | 224.74 | 2 | 12 | $55 |
| 6 | 11,425.00 | Jesper Svensson | $168,636.00 | 16 | 225.41 | 1 | 13 | $39 |
| 7 | 11,955.00 | David Krol | $128,200.00 | 19 | 219.85 | 2 | 7 | $39 |
| 8 | 20,790.00 | Bill ONeill | $198,540.00 | 16 | 224.4 | 1 | 11 | $39 |
| 9 | 12,690.00 | Zachary Wilkins | $70,188.00 | 15 | 225.33 | 0 | 14 | $32 |
| 10 | 15,405.00 | Matt Russo | $145,882.00 | 16 | 224.03 | 1 | 12 | $30 |
| 11 | 10,525.00 | Patrick Hanrahan | $93,453.00 | 17 | 221.76 | 0 | 11 | $30 |
| 12 | 10,205.00 | A J Johnson | $75,282.00 | 17 | 222.29 | 0 | 12 | $29 |
| 13 | 10,837.50 | Chris Via | $85,666.00 | 16 | 222.86 | 0 | 10 | $28 |
| 14 | 10,445.00 | Graham Fach | $97,375.00 | 15 | 221.43 | 0 | 11 | $27 |
| 15 | 10,290.00 | Andrew Anderson | $74,905.00 | 17 | 219.05 | 1 | 9 | $26 |
| 16 | 9,115.00 | Dom Barrett | $49,957.00 | 17 | 220.39 | 0 | 7 | $25 |
| 17 | 9,127.50 | Kristopher Prather | $64,125.00 | 15 | 221.38 | 1 | 10 | $25 |
| 18 | 10,067.50 | Jason Sterner | $54,000.00 | 14 | 219.48 | 0 | 7 | $24 |
| 19 | 8,500.00 | B J Moore | $57,133.00 | 12 | 223.64 | 0 | 9 | $23 |
| 20 | 10,547.50 | Tom Smallwood | $102,175.00 | 15 | 218.86 | 0 | 8 | $22 |
| 21 | N/A | Ryan Barnes | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | $21 |
| 22 | 9,670.00 | Jake Peters | $43,700.00 | 15 | 218.05 | 0 | 8 | $20 |
| 23 | 9,560.00 | Tom Daugherty | $51,066.00 | 14 | 220.55 | 0 | 8 | $16 |
| 24 | 6,045.00 | Jakob Butturff | $33,850.00 | 14 | 220.52 | 0 | 8 | $15 |
| 25 | 8,305.00 | Sam Cooley | $36,400.00 | 14 | 218.22 | 0 | 5 | $14 |
| 26 | 9,310.00 | Justin Knowles | $73,100.00 | 14 | 222.56 | 0 | 9 | $13 |
| 27 | 7,705.00 | Eric Jones | $58,950.00 | 18 | 218.58 | 0 | 6 | $12 |
| 28 | 8,935.00 | Matthew Ogle | $58,432.00 | 14 | 220.18 | 0 | 6 | $11 |
| 29 | 7,740.00 | Richard Teece | $37,933.00 | 16 | 216.54 | 0 | 8 | $10 |
| 30 | 6,510.00 | Kyle Sherman | $37,040.00 | 11 | 222.2 | 0 | 6 | $9 |
| 31 | 4,190.00 | Kevin McCune | $23,749.00 | 15 | 216.8 | 0 | 6 | $8 |
| 32 | 6,493.00 | Deo Benard | $35,000.00 | 18 | 218.94 | 1 | 4 | $7 |
| 33 | 6,305.00 | Tommy Jones | $25,250.00 | 14 | 220.57 | 0 | 6 | $7 |
| 34 | 7,445.00 | Keven Williams | $45,999.00 | 14 | 218.18 | 0 | 6 | $7 |
| 35 | 6,740.00 | Patrick Dombrowski | $54,750.00 | 8 | 217.33 | 0 | 3 | $5 |
| 36 | 6,512.50 | Mitch Hupe | $37,866.00 | 14 | 219.81 | 0 | 9 | $5 |
| 37 | 6,400.00 | Nate Stubler | $40,125.00 | 18 | 221.03 | 0 | 4 | $4 |
| 38 | 4,735.00 | Francois Lavoie | $43,641.00 | 16 | 216.37 | 1 | 8 | $3 |
| 39 | 3,295.00 | Tim Foy Jr. | $10,100.00 | 11 | 222.61 | 0 | 1 | $2 |
| 40 | 5,632.50 | Sean Rash | $38,107.00 | 16 | 214.91 | 0 | 7 | $2 |
| 41 | 5,890.00 | Tomas Kayhko | $28,268.00 | 15 | 215.72 | 0 | 3 | $2 |
| 42 | 5,872.50 | Stuart Williams | $26,043.00 | 15 | 219.37 | 0 | 9 | $2 |
| 43 | 150 | Cameron Crowe | $1,125.00 | 3 | 213.29 | 0 | 1 | $2 |
| 44 | 4,075.00 | Nate Purches | $21,550.00 | 11 | 222.49 | 0 | 5 | $1 |
| 45 | 7,305.00 | Sean Lavery-Spahr | $20,425.00 | 13 | 217.73 | 0 | 3 | $1 |
| 46 | 6,472.50 | Matt Sanders | $20,750.00 | 13 | 216.24 | 0 | 5 | $1 |
| 47 | 5,520.00 | A J Chapman | $15,700.00 | 12 | 219.44 | 0 | 4 | $1 |
| 48 | 5,490.00 | Nathan Bohr | $21,157.00 | 17 | 218.53 | 0 | 7 | $1 |
| 49 | N/A | Santtu Tahvanainen | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | $1 |
| 50 | 3,772.50 | Kim Bolleby | $9,367.00 | 13 | 215.2 | 0 | 2 | $1 |
| 51 | N/A | Chase Nadeau | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | $1 |
| 52 | 8,115.50 | Dee Ronn Booker | $100,000.00 | 9 | 214 | 1 | 1 | $1 |
| 53 | N/A | Hayden Stippich | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | $1 |
| 54 | 4,227.50 | Darren Tang | $21,314.00 | 14 | 216.84 | 0 | 5 | $1 |
| 55 | 5,822.50 | Cristian Azcona | $25,285.00 | 13 | 218.19 | 0 | 4 | $1 |
| 56 | 4,925.00 | (S) Chris Barnes | $25,483.00 | 13 | 217.17 | 0 | 4 | $1 |
| 57 | 4,630.00 | Shawn Maldonado | $18,150.00 | 15 | 214.15 | 0 | 4 | $1 |
| 58 | 480 | Christopher Sloan | 0 | 12 | 209.51 | 0 | 0 | $1 |
| 59 | 5,282.50 | D J Archer | $23,000.00 | 16 | 218.38 | 0 | 6 | $1 |
| 60 | 2,005.00 | Bailey Mavrick | $8,350.00 | 12 | 217.89 | 0 | 3 | $1 |
| 61 | 1,942.50 | Thomas Larsen | $19,634.00 | 11 | 213.4 | 0 | 2 | $1 |
| 62 | 730 | Andrew Hall | $3,525.00 | 11 | 215.2 | 0 | 2 | $1 |
| 63 | 1,545.00 | Brandon Runk | 0 | 10 | 213.25 | 0 | 0 | $1 |
| 64 | 870.00 | Gary Faulkner Jr | $2,100.00 | 5 | 215.74 | 0 | 1 | $1 |
| 65 | 3,055.00 | Ronnie Russell | $6,600.00 | 13 | 211.15 | 0 | 2 | $1 |
Recruit Other Owners and Conduct Your Draft
Invite your fellow PBA fans to join your fantasy league. I recruited a group from one of my bowling leagues, and we conducted our draft after bowling this week. If that doesn't work for your group, use RotoWire's draft date picker tool to find a date and time that works best for everyone.
For an auction draft, team managers will take turns nominating PBA players. Everyone has the opportunity to bid, and highest bidder wins that player. Track picks and spending in a spreadsheet, which you can also use for updating scores throughout the season.
Update Scoring and Keep Your League Engaged
Be sure to update total Tour points for each player throughout the season (referring again to the PBA Player Stats page or individual tournament results on pba.com).
Get the most out of the season by getting together to watch the action on BowlTV, FS1 and FOX throughout the season. Trash talk and side bets are encouraged.
Welcome to the small community of fantasy bowling commissioners!
