The National Championship and World Championship have been contested over the years using a variety of formats. Currently, the PBA World Championship format is different from normal PBA Tour events. Since the 2009–10 season, the initial qualifying scores for the World Championship have come from other stand-alone tournaments at the
PBA World Series of Bowling, which celebrated its 16th anniversary in 2025. Thus, the current tournament is open to any PBA member who also enters the World Series of Bowling. For the 2009–10 season, the PBA World Championship was part of the World Series of Bowling held in
Allen Park, Michigan, and was contested in a split format. The qualifying rounds of the tournament were contested August 31 – September 4, with the televised finals being broadcast live on
ESPN December 13, 2009. The PBA's second World Series of Bowling in 2010 was contested in
Las Vegas, Nevada, and was again used as qualifying for the 2010–11 PBA World Championship. This time, the 60-game qualifying scores for the five "animal pattern" championships held at the World Series were used to determine the 8-bowler TV field for the PBA World Championship finals. The World Championship finals were televised live over three consecutive days (January 14–16, 2011), a PBA first. Currently (as of the
2026 WSOB XVII), combined scores from the 40 games of qualifying (10 games on each of four different "animal" oil patterns) determine the top one-third of the WSOB field that move on to the PBA World Championship Advancers round. After 10 more games on the
Earl Anthony 42 oil pattern, which is named after the six-time winner of this event, the top 16 move on to the match play round. These 16 players then bowl 15 games of roundrobin head-to-head match play, plus one position round match. Total pinfall from all 50 qualifying games, plus the 16 match play games (including 30 bonus pins for head-to-head match play wins), determines the nine players that advance to the televised semifinals. The semifinals is a play-in round for the 5–9 seeds to determine the fifth bowler who will join the top four from match play in the televised finals. The Earl Anthony 42 oil pattern is also used for match play, semifinals and finals. ==World Champions==