By Mark Miller

USBC Communications

The United States Bowling Congress had an overall membership of 2,728,590 in the 2005-06 season, the organization's first complete season. That made USBC the third largest in membership of the 45 National Governing Bodies recognized by the United States Olympic Committee. Only softball and soccer with more than four million members each are higher.

USBC included 2,407,819 adult and 320,771 youth members in the United States, Puerto Rico and on U.S. military bases worldwide. They bowled on 998,510 teams in 90,857 leagues. The season ran from Aug. 1, 2005 through July 31, 2006.

Just as previously under the former American Bowling Congress, Women's International Bowling Congress and Young American Bowling Alliance, Michigan featured the most members of any USBC state association and Metro Detroit the most in any local USBC association. Michigan had a combined 245,210 members (222,895 adult, 22,315 youth) while Detroit had 90,784 members (82,883 adult, 7,901 youth).

Ohio ranked No. 2 for overall state membership with 191,137 (168,765 adult, 22,372 youth), New York was third with 181,756 (154,194 adult, 27,562 youth), California fourth with 160,616 (146,156 adult, 14,460 youth) and Illinois fifth with 157,635 (136,117 adult, 21,518 youth).

The Chicagoland USBC was second in local associations with 38,599 members (37,202 adults, 1,397 youth). The Nation's Capital Area (D.C.) USBC as third with 30,338 (27,587 adult, 2,751 youth), Greater Denver was fourth with 24,876 (23,263 adult, 1,613 youth) and Long Island (N.Y.) USBC was fifth with 24,722 (21,005 adult, 3,717 youth).