Relationship between bowling center and pro shop?

[Aslan]

You're ignoring the trends.

The # of games bowled, attributed to league bowling is on a decline, while open bowling (non league bowlers) is increasing.

Agreed Mr. White…but while you're focused on the trends…you're ignoring the fundamentals.

Is league bowling on the decline? Yes…and it has been for about 40 years. Absolutely. But while league bowling has been on decline…so has bowling center constriuction and ownership. There are many centers that CLAIM their model is working…when in FACT…the ONLY reason league bowlers and cosmic bowlers fill the place is because they have no other choices. When I was a kid…there was a bowling alley in every single town…from New Baltimore to Marysville and 2 in Port Huron. Thats about 7 towns all adjacent to each other in semi-rural Michigan. When we visited family up North, there were 3 bowling centers in their town.

Now…there 3-4 centers in those towns where I grew up total. So the number of centers dropped by at best 50%. And up north…they went from 3 centers to 1. And thats a college town.

My point is…to truly see how important leagues are…you have to repopulate the map with all those centers…like 20,000 that used to be there…look at what truly caused them to fail…and then honestly ask yourself it it was the league bowlers leaving or if it was that there was too much league bowling and not enough cosmic bowling. Because I've heard time after time of centers closing when league bowlers left…and I've never once in 40 years heard of a center that had a large league presence and it closed.

That being said…I just found out tonight that Tustin Bowl is closing. Just like Yorba Linda Bowl back in 2012…it was because the lease was up and the owner got a big offer for the land. I hadn't heard about it till tonight, figured I'd let ya know. Damn. That was one of my back-up centers to go to if things didn't work out at the center near me…because Tustin Bowl wasn't that far away…and very dry lanes which I usually did well on.

[Mike White]

Agreed Mr. White…but while you're focused on the trends…you're ignoring the fundamentals.

Is league bowling on the decline? Yes…and it has been for about 40 years. Absolutely. But while league bowling has been on decline…so has bowling center constriuction and ownership. There are many centers that CLAIM their model is working…when in FACT…the ONLY reason league bowlers and cosmic bowlers fill the place is because they have no other choices. When I was a kid…there was a bowling alley in every single town…from New Baltimore to Marysville and 2 in Port Huron. Thats about 7 towns all adjacent to each other in semi-rural Michigan. When we visited family up North, there were 3 bowling centers in their town.

Now…there 3-4 centers in those towns where I grew up total. So the number of centers dropped by at best 50%. And up north…they went from 3 centers to 1. And thats a college town.

My point is…to truly see how important leagues are…you have to repopulate the map with all those centers…like 20,000 that used to be there…look at what truly caused them to fail…and then honestly ask yourself it it was the league bowlers leaving or if it was that there was too much league bowling and not enough cosmic bowling. Because I've heard time after time of centers closing when league bowlers left…and I've never once in 40 years heard of a center that had a large league presence and it closed.

That being said…I just found out tonight that Tustin Bowl is closing. Just like Yorba Linda Bowl back in 2012…it was because the lease was up and the owner got a big offer for the land. I hadn't heard about it till tonight, figured I'd let ya know. Damn. That was one of my back-up centers to go to if things didn't work out at the center near me…because Tustin Bowl wasn't that far away…and very dry lanes which I usually did well on.

Back in the late 80's the BPAA forced the ABC (now USBC) to recognize honor scores, or effectively perish.
BPAA threatened to self sanction.

The idea was the BPAA wanted easier conditions to draw in more customers.

The problem with that idea is, easy conditions doesn't draw in new bowlers, it draws existing bowlers from one center to the other.

That means any center who tried to protect the credibility of the sport, lost customers because the other place was "better".

Lose enough customers, and the place closes.

Look at the house Iceman used to bowl at. According to him, it was doing fine with league bowlers, but Bowlmor decided to consolidate.

Less bowling centers means less employees, and the theory was displaced bowlers would migrate to the other centers that Bowlmor purchased.



Oddly enough Tustin Lanes, Temecula Lanes, and where I'm at Arlington Lanes were all owned by the same guy.

He sold Temecula less than a year ago, and now he's closing Tustin.

I wouldn't be surprised if Arlington is also on the chopping block. I'm under the impression he owns the land, and it's proximity to the airport probably makes it valuable for any form of light industry.

He did recently invest in some new carpeting, but the rest of the equipment is a mix-n-match collection of things he was able to pick up on E-Bay.

I think he picked up some equipment from Yorba Lanes.

[MICHAEL]

After all the lanes closed throughout the United States, one set of 6 will still stand tall, and be running and bowing leagues till the end time!

Plattsburg Missouri Farm Boy Wooden Lanes!

Its not a bad town with a golf course, Olympic size community pool with a fiberglass slide!

A town that both of you could call HOME,,,

We will be here after all the lanes close in CA!!!

Some lanes are just made to last, as are the people that have that rugged Midwest character, born to Bowl!

As more and more lanes close to you surfer guys in CA,,, and the air turns to a saucy thick gravy.... Just remember this:



WE WOOD Welcome you both to the very Heart of this country, Plattsburg Missouri, with open lanes!! Amen Iceman

ASLAN,,, my name is Mandy, and I would keep score for you,,,,, for FREE,,, We don't have those automatic score thingies .... Who knows,,, what else might come between us... We still use the over head projectors..... Just find a damn job, I am not taken in any more free-loaders!!

[Tony]

"Keep in mind another major factor, the cost to attract the recreational bowler, once a guy joins a league he is probably going to be showing up 30 plus times a year , how many advertising dollars does it take to entice the recreational bowler to return 30 plus time in the next year. Once you factor that single item in, you can easily see for the average bowling center in the midwest the league bowler is the one that drives the revenue."

I suppose all of this part came from their conversation, and none of it was something you just made up.

As for someone being in the BPAA hall of fame... that's not a big compliment.

It's the BPAA who must take the largest share of blame for the sport losing credibility.

Ok, fine whatever you say, apparently you know everything and anyone with a differing opinion is just wrong or making stuff up.
This from the guy who used the "100 people at random" advertising revenue example. That was powerful non made up evidence if I've ever seen it....

I haven't run a bowling center but I can hear and understand they guys that do and have been running them for years, oh but I forgot a guy in California is the all knowing expert on bowling in the Midwest, perhaps world-wide, I'm not sure.

I guess next time I see the guys, I'll let them know they should see you because you've got it all figured out and everyone else is just making **** up... SMH

[Mike White]

Ok, fine whatever you say, apparently you know everything and anyone with a differing opinion is just wrong or making stuff up.
This from the guy who used the "100 people at random" advertising revenue example. That was powerful non made up evidence if I've ever seen it....

I haven't run a bowling center but I can hear and understand they guys that do and have been running them for years, oh but I forgot a guy in California is the all knowing expert on bowling in the Midwest, perhaps world-wide, I'm not sure.

I guess next time I see the guys, I'll let them know they should see you because you've got it all figured out and everyone else is just making **** up... SMH

Hey, you are the one who brought up the idea of advertising costs.

The least expensive form of advertising is to send out your information to the general public..... Be that TV, Radio, or junk mail.

The issue is, you don't know anything about those people when you send the information, so they are "people at random"

Now you can narrow down that to people who are more likely to be interested in bowling, but gathering that information about your target audience has a higher cost.


The "100 people at random" is actually a scientific process, not some made up fiction.

Statistics 101.

If I were to tell you in advance exactly how those 100 people would answer, that would be made up ****. I didn't do that.

[jab5325]

The PSO at my center actually now runs the entire center.

The land/building is owned by an old guy who wanted to retire. He gave the PSO the chance to lease the business in addition to the shop.

I'll be interested to see what happens when the old guy dies. I'm not privy to lease details, but the place sits near an interchange along a major highway and near an industrial park. Some parcels have been developed, so I'd imagine the land is pretty desirable.

The operator has made improvements, but the center is very old and doesn't have a liquor license. It would need a lot of money to update the place to free it of "issues".....I'm not sure the money could ever be recouped on the backend.

[Amyers]

Bowling in the Midwest and California are different beasts. Property values, costs, and wages are far different. Advertising is a bad example for league bowling most league bowlers know the local centers and base their choices off of where their friends are, lane conditions that fit their games, and other reasons not who has a cool sounding advertisement. Open bowlers make their decisions based on the experience, price, and availability.

League bowling is shrinking their is no doubt about it but if managed properly can still be a major revenue source and much more dependable than cosmic bowling. Their is a reason most high level bowlers tend to spend less than your average cosmic bowler per visit. It is because the high level bowler makes many more visits than the cosmic bowler if you went with a monthly dollar spent metric looking at it my guess is the average high level bowler spends much more than the your average cosmic bowler.

Where change needs to be is the proprietors need to figure out a way to transform some of these cosmic bowlers into league bowlers. Maybe some changes need to be made to your leagues to be of more interest to that mentality to help create more league bowlers. Center count is going to shrink farther too many centers on valuable land and poorly located centers for modern times. The loss of the 9-5 factory and mid level office worker is killing the sport more than anything else and I don't know how you fix that but most of the proprietors need to up their game to bring people in too. At least from my local centers they have little to no understanding of the internet, social media, or how to connect with people in the modern world. If they don't change and learn how to do these things we are going to lose even more centers than we have too.

[Doghouse Reilly]

Ok, fine whatever you say, apparently you know everything and anyone with a differing opinion is just wrong or making stuff up.
This from the guy who used the "100 people at random" advertising revenue example. That was powerful non made up evidence if I've ever seen it....

I haven't run a bowling center but I can hear and understand they guys that do and have been running them for years, oh but I forgot a guy in California is the all knowing expert on bowling in the Midwest, perhaps world-wide, I'm not sure.

I guess next time I see the guys, I'll let them know they should see you because you've got it all figured out and everyone else is just making **** up... SMH

Okay TONY, You figured it out!!
He has a big disdain for everyone in bowling, coaches, people who have been in the industry for years, mfg's, BPAA, USBC, the pro's, other bowlers, PSO etc.

They all don't know what they are talking about, they base everything on faulty science, outdated information, draw the wrong conclusions, teach the wrong methods etc. etc.

Which I believe all came about back in the 80's (Back when he was the only bowler in the country putting 5-6-7-800 rpm's on plastic balls), he had a problem and went to 2-3 coaches and they couldn't help or made it worse. So he figured out himself, which proved he knew more than everyone else.

Then he had to drop out for 20 years, came back found thingds changed, they were using things like PAP locatiions, Dual angle layouts, all of which didn't make sense, so they were all wrong or stupid. Resin balls (which he can't use because they are tooo powerful for him , so he sticks to urethane and plastic balls).

Don't believe it, go back through the old posts.

Of course Tony you know he's going to follow you around now and dump on every post you make. Just ask that guy Rob.

[bubba809]

Okay TONY, You figured it out!!
He has a big disdain for everyone in bowling, coaches, people who have been in the industry for years, mfg's, BPAA, USBC, the pro's, other bowlers, PSO etc.

They all don't know what they are talking about, they base everything on faulty science, outdated information, draw the wrong conclusions, teach the wrong methods etc. etc.

Which I believe all came about back in the 80's (Back when he was the only bowler in the country putting 5-6-7-800 rpm's on plastic balls), he had a problem and went to 2-3 coaches and they couldn't help or made it worse. So he figured out himself, which proved he knew more than everyone else.

Then he had to drop out for 20 years, came back found thingds changed, they were using things like PAP locatiions, Dual angle layouts, all of which didn't make sense, so they were all wrong or stupid. Resin balls (which he can't use because they are tooo powerful for him , so he sticks to urethane and plastic balls).

Don't believe it, go back through the old posts.

Of course Tony you know he's going to follow you around now and dump on every post you make. Just ask that guy Rob.

LOL....POTY!

I often wonder why the mods don't view it as "trolling" when he follows EVERY ONE of poor Rob's posts who is just trying to help people improve. Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm........

[Amyers]

LOL....POTY!

I often wonder why the mods don't view it as "trolling" when he follows EVERY ONE of poor Rob's posts who is just trying to help people improve. Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm........

Can't believe that I'm defending Mike but while I don't agree with his following specific posters around and bashing everything they say sometimes he has a point and adds to the conversation. Mike has a better understanding of the physics of ball motion than most bowlers and even a lot of PSO's. I've seen some of his comments on other sites that are informative and well though out an honestly over top of the heads (including mine sometimes) of a lot of the followers of this site (not trying to pigeon hole but this site does tend to attract more newish bowlers). I do wish he would limit his disagreements to actual reasons and not get into the blind bashing that it devolves into at times but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad when your dealing with people.