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Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is a governing body for cue sports in North America (here defined as the United States and Canada exclusively), the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA).〔` Puerto Rico, though a US territory, and Mexico, though often classified as part of North America geographically, are both instead members of the Latin-American Confederation Panamerica of Billiards (CPB) instead.〕 It was established under this name in 1948 as a non-profit trade organization in order to promote the sport and organize its players via tournaments at various levels. The BCA is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado.〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 2008. Colorado Springs: Billiard Congress of America.〕 The voting members of the organization are mostly equipment manufacturers. The BCA publishes a rule book that includes rules merged with the WPA World Standardized Rules for games such as nine-ball, eight-ball, and straight pool, as well as rules for other games that are not presently the subject of international competition, such as cowboy pool, rotation, American snooker, and Chicago among many others. The BCA holds an annual trade show, the International Billiards & Home Recreation Expo. Also annually, it inducts great players, and those who have made great contributions to the sport, into the BCA Hall of Fame. ==History== The origins of the BCA began with the National Billiard Association of America (NBAA), founded July 25, 1921. The organization rapidly became the ''de facto'' governing body of the sport in the United States, with 35,000 members by 1928, and was closely tied to the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company, a major equipment manufacturer. After a decline in influence in the late 1930s, in part owing to a dispute with world carom champion Willie Hoppe, the NBAA reformed in 1941 as the Billiard Association of America (BAA or BA of A).〔''Official Rule Book for All Pocket and Carom Billiard Games''. 1946. Chicago: Billiard Association of America. Cover, frontispiece and p. 26 ("Pocket Billiards Index").〕 Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and calling itself "the Governing Body of Billiards", the BAA produced a concise, portable, inexpensive rulebook of carom and pocket billiards games, that was to serve as the model for future BCA releases.〔 The BAA in turn became the BCA, 1947–1948.〔〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 1991. Iowa City: Billard Congress of America. Foreword.〕 The BCA formed with, and for several years shared offices with, the promotional trade association National Billiard Council (NBC), now defunct.〔 Early BCA rulebooks were essentially identical to the 1946 BAA edition, including the cover art and the absence of the increasingly popular game nine-ball from the ruleset.〔〔''Official Rule Book for All Pocket and Carom Billiard Games''. 1950. Toledo, OH: Billiard Congress of America. Cover, frontispiece and p. 26 ("Pocket Billiards Index").〕 (Nine-ball still did not appear in the 1963 rulebook, despite being one of the pool gambling games of choice by that era, but did appear in the 1967 and all subsequent editions.〔''Official Rule Book for All Pocket and Carom Billiard Games''. 1963. Toledo, OH: Billiard Congress of America. Cover, frontispiece and p. 26 ("Pocket Billiards Index").〕〔''Official Rule and Record Book for All Pocket and Carom Billiard Games''. 1967. Toledo, OH: Billiard Congress of America. P. 2 ("Contents").〕) The BCA rulebooks have remained in near-annual continuous publication to the present day. During its first thirty-two years of existence as the BCA, the organization had various addresses, including in Toledo, Ohio〔''Official Rule Book for All Pocket and Carom Billiard Games''. 1950. Toledo, OH: Billiard Congress of America. Frontispiece.〕 and Chicago.〔''Official Rule Book for All Pocket and Carom Billiard Games''. 1962. Chicago: Billiard Congress of America. Frontispiece.〕 In 1980, they opened their longest-term permanent office in Iowa City, Iowa, and moved it in 1997 to Coralville, Iowa for a brief period.〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 1996. Iowa City: Billiard Congress of America. Frontispiece.〕〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 1997. Coralville, IA: Billiard Congress of America. Frontispiece.〕 In 2000, the BCA relocated to its current headquarters in Colorado Springs.〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 1999. Coralville, IA: Billiard Congress of America. Frontispiece.〕〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 2000. Colorado Springs: Billiard Congress of America. Frontispiece.〕 Also in 2000, the BCA made the major move of adopting the WPA's ''World Standardized Rules'' for eight-ball, nine-ball and other games subject to international professional competition. The BCA had by this time become the national affiliate of the WPA, the International Olympic Committee-recognized world governing body of billiards and pool. In the new edition of the rules, the organization expressed a commitment to seeing pool and carom billiards become Olympic sports (and in fact selected Colorado Springs for its new headquarters for proximity to the US Olympic Committee).〔''Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book''. 2000. Colorado Springs: Billiard Congress of America. P. iii ("Foreword").〕 The rules changes have not been without controversy, as some of them upset US player expectations; various leagues have ignored the new rules and continued with traditional US rules (e.g., in the game of eight-ball, legally pocketing the 8 ball on the has commonly been treated as an instant win). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Billiard Congress of America」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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