Your right Ursus! I guess its the balance that needs to be there! If 2 many people leave the sport, alleys close! Balance is the key! Fewer alleys might actually make prices go up! Many different ways to look at it I guess!
Why I am glad bowling isn't more popular
I keep wondering why bowling has lost some of its popularity over the years, but then it occurred to me that it might not be such a bad thing. It seems everytime something get popular the price goes way up. Pickup trucks used to be one of the lower priced vehicles till it became a hip thing to drive and the prices shot up. I wore carhart clothes all growing up, then it became popular, now what was once a good affordable coat has gone through the roof in price. So I am glad I can still go in the the bowling alley about any time and get on a lane, and relatively cheaply in this day and age enjoy afew games without breaking the bank.
Your right Ursus! I guess its the balance that needs to be there! If 2 many people leave the sport, alleys close! Balance is the key! Fewer alleys might actually make prices go up! Many different ways to look at it I guess!
You don't like to see the Bowling Alley's bottom line suffer. It would also be nice to not see them stuggle to have to fill enough teams for each of the leagues. In the mean time I will do my part by providing them with an income stream, and enjoy the open lanes and reasonable prices
Back in bowling's "hay day" (60's, 70's and 80's) I used to bowl for 25 cents per game up through $1.00 per game. Nowadays, you can expect to pay $3.50 per game on average and in some places much higher than that. The demand has gone waaaaay down, but the cost has gone waaaay up. The law of supply and demand??? That is not the way I was taught it.....
Jay
I am a proud member of Bowlingboards.com bowling Forums
IN THE BAG > RG -Hyper Cell Fused, Menace; Storm -Code Black, Reign of Power, Lock; [COLOR=#006400;,Track - Hx-10, [B]"
High Game/High Series - 299(2)/300(13)/856 (Elmira, NY in 1980); Member of Corning, NY Junior Bowling HOF.
Tweener; PAP= 4.75 over x .75 up/Tilt 10 degrees/Axis of rotation 40 degrees/Revs = 368 and speed is 16.86 MPH average.
When you compare it to other things it is still pretty cheap. A round of golf is $40+. Cost $10 just to see a movie. There are quite a few alleys around that have $1 nights or $8 for all you can bowl. Thats still cheap entertainment all things considered. But yeah, the alleys that charge $5 bucks a game seems pretty steap
Ours is $4.00 game, league bowlers discount to $2.50 game. These are 60 year old wood lanes. They spent a lot of money about 5 or 6 years ago on new tables and carpet. The carpet glows in the dark for 'glowmania'. Nothing new was done for all the league bowlers. Ownership tried telling me once that they made more on open bowling. I actually laughed at loud. I then explained how the less than 100 open bowlers made up less than $1,200 gross revenue. The alley gets $8.50 per person per night for league totaling over $5,100 in gross revenue. That doesn't count the massive amounts of alcohol or food consumed by either group. Noticing I figured this out on the fly, in my head, management has not tried to BS me again.
During the summer the house gets the full $12 per person/night league fee as they are non-sanctioned. One week this month they had a total of 13 open bowlers. Common sense alone says that if leagues weren't profitable, they wouldn't keep adding them.
USBC SILVER CERTIFIED COACH
Gold Coach Candidate
Owner/Operator of Bowlerz Score Coaching
Tweener Rev Rate of 420, Speed 19 mph
Key Bowling Staff Member
Key Bowling Coaching Staff
IBPSIA member
Former Staff Bowler at www.BowlerX.com
Out here in California, I think we have the highest prices. $15 for movie, $20-$100+ for golf, cheapest gas is $4 and if your not on a league at the bowling alley you are at, $5.50 per game. If you are on a league at the bowling alley it is $1 9AM-5PM everyday(at least the one I go to). Then there is also the amount that they charge per hour. Which is something like $15 per hour. Kind of sucks that the price for everything has gone up. When I was a kid you could bowl 3 games for about $8-$10. I'm glade I'm on a league so I only pay $1 a game. I usually bowl as many as my knee and arm can take to try to make it worth while for the bowling alley to give us league members a great price.
The price per line at my local center is $2.50. It's not the most modern house but not bad. 24 lanes synthetic pretty well maintained. There are quite a few leagues and a fair amount of open bowling. There is another 24 lane house across town that probably does about the same amount of business. They are both owned by the same people so I guess the prices are the same at both.
I am a proud member of Bowlingboards.com bowling Forums
Storm Modern Marvel
Radical Time's Up
Storm Black Ice
Place I bowl at has a sweet deal if you come in before 3:00 Monday through Friday it's 10 bucks per person for 2 hours plus you get a soda and a small pizza. The food there isn't that great though. I just get the soda. On the weekends it's pretty expensive, about 25 or 30 bucks for 2 people to bowl an hour.
Price of bowling here in Australia is a far cry from you guys in the states. With AMF Australia, social play $14.90 1 game, $19.90 for 2 games. League bowlers get $5.50 practice games if you flash your gold member card. You can pre-purchase games online and print out a voucher for $7.95. Most of the private centres aren't too far off this either, but haven't seen any under $10.00 a game for social play for yonks.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks