Bowling towel etiquette

[DarkyDizzle]

My opinion is leave it behind the lanes, including towels (after you wipe off).

100% agree. Ever since I started bowling when I was 6 we were always taught bowling etiquette and that was to bring it back with us. I carry it up for my roll and carry it back when I finish. Just something I personally have always done.

[Ishkabibble]

I lay it across my shoulder if it is a smaller towel or leave it on the back table. We really don't have an issue in my league with items being left on the ball return.

[classygranny]

I wipe my ball every frame and thus leave my towel on the ball return while I bowl. I make sure that it is down between balls so it isn't laying on someone's ball and near the front so it doesn't keep the balls from coming back to the front of the return. I always pick it up after I am done so it is only there while I am shooting. We don't really have any other place close by to put towels except on the floor, as the front table may not be the one our team is sitting at. Most people do the same as myself, but a lot just let it sit on top of the balls, and majority remove them after their turn.

[Timmyb]

Since I can't use chemicals on the ball between shots (USBC rules and such)....and I bowl in an AMF center that returns my ball back to me looking like a Dalmation with black spots all over it from their dirty lanes/ball return....I sometimes spit on my ball and wipe it with my towel. That also usually serves the purpose of keeping people from touching it.

Seems to be a thing with AMF centers. The one I bowled at for a few weeks in Milwaukee left so much crap on my ball, it took over and hour to clean it up, and half a bottle of cleaner. Is there some unwritten rule that they don't clean the returns or subways?

[Aslan]

Seems to be a thing with AMF centers. The one I bowled at for a few weeks in Milwaukee left so much crap on my ball, it took over and hour to clean it up, and half a bottle of cleaner. Is there some unwritten rule that they don't clean the returns or subways?

I don't know. I complained to the manager and showed him my bright red ball that looked red and black it was so dirtied up. He told me something about how it might be how I'm throwing it or maybe I throw it too hard or something like that. Yeah, okay. It's the bowler's style at fault?

This is the same house that it's almost impossible to find a pair of lanes where the pinsetters aren't constantly dropping pins needing to be reset...and the same center where one of the pinsetters caught on fire during league play and was smoking...smelled like burnt pizza. Bowlmor bought them and painted the building and put neon lights outside...but then fired most of the staff, reduced the hours they'd be open, and put $0 into equipment improvements.

I think Bowlmor is a secret communist faction that is trying to undermine and destroy bowling in America and bring down Democracy as we know it.

Oooo....crazy conspiracy theory...ICEMAN...ICEMAN....ICEMAN...
(I said his name three times so he would appear...like a white version of Candyman)

[Timmyb]

I don't know. I complained to the manager and showed him my bright red ball that looked red and black it was so dirtied up. He told me something about how it might be how I'm throwing it or maybe I throw it too hard or something like that. Yeah, okay. It's the bowler's style at fault?

This is the same house that it's almost impossible to find a pair of lanes where the pinsetters aren't constantly dropping pins needing to be reset...and the same center where one of the pinsetters caught on fire during league play and was smoking...smelled like burnt pizza. Bowlmor bought them and painted the building and put neon lights outside...but then fired most of the staff, reduced the hours they'd be open, and put $0 into equipment improvements.

I think Bowlmor is a secret communist faction that is trying to undermine and destroy bowling in America and bring down Democracy as we know it.

Oooo....crazy conspiracy theory...ICEMAN...ICEMAN....ICEMAN...
(I said his name three times so he would appear...like a white version of Candyman)

Yeah, that's it. You're throwing the ball so hard it's scorching the oil right on to the surface. One more MPH, and it'll be throwing a fire rooster tail! I hate to see any houses go out of business, but if you don't take care of your s**t, you do it to yourself. My regular house has a packed lot every day. Red Carpet West (AMF) usually doesn't look likes it's open.

[NewToBowling]

Seems to be a thing with AMF centers. The one I bowled at for a few weeks in Milwaukee left so much crap on my ball, it took over and hour to clean it up, and half a bottle of cleaner. Is there some unwritten rule that they don't clean the returns or subways?

It's center specific, not limited to AMF. I know my local AMF I bowl at must have the best maintenance people or something because I've been bowling there almost exclusively for the past 6 months or so and my balls are still in almost new condition. No scratches, gouges, marks. I still have my Cyclone (first purchased ball) that I used at various centers and it is beat up to hell.

[Aslan]

It's center specific, not limited to AMF. I know my local AMF I bowl at must have the best maintenance people or something because I've been bowling there almost exclusively for the past 6 months or so and my balls are still in almost new condition. No scratches, gouges, marks. I still have my Cyclone (first purchased ball) that I used at various centers and it is beat up to hell.

I'm not saying some AMF and Brunswick centers aren't better than others...it's just the trend appears to be getting purchased by Bowlmor is like a ticket to The Green Mile. IF your center doesn't close down (and that's a big "if"), you'll be expected to be open very rarely, get rid of most of your current staff...especially the higher paid folks, and the emphasis isn't going to be bowling...it's gonna be ambiance and bar sales.

And Bowlmor lies about these things...claiming that centers that went under or were closed were simply not seeing enough business to survive...yet from what I've seen, that's hit or miss as an argument. I've seen three centers close recently (since 2012) and in those cases the centers nearest to them got flooded with displaced bowlers and are so busy they now have to regularly turn people away. So, it's not an issue of "busy"...it's an issue of maximizing profit.

To intentionally get off on a tangent....since this is a political year...it's like when conservatives talk about how more regulations or health insurance or an increased wage...how those things will all lead to layoffs because companies can't afford those things. That would be TRUE....if we assume that said companies have no ability to lower profit expectations to accommodate for these increased costs. And that's what they want you to think....but it's simply not true.

Example:
You have a bowling center, we'll call it the Iceman Center of Bowling Gifted Excellence for lack of a better name.

You make $3000/day in gross profit.
Your labor costs are $800/day.
Your utilities/business costs are $350/day.
Your cost of goods/materials are $700/day.

So, you NET $1150/day. That's $418,600/year net profit.
The OWNER has decided that based on his annual investment of $673,400, his expectations are to make 60% ($404,040) annually on this establishment.

Now lets say a minimum wage goes up significantly and a $100/month/person healthcare tax is added. That brings the annual costs up say $219.40/day in increased wages and $32.88/day in new healthcare costs. The center still makes money, but not 60%. It instead makes $324,678 annually on an annual investment of $767,322. So, instead of making 60%, the center makes nearly 42%.

Now, in the OLD DAYS...you could generally make about 2.5% in a savings account, about 8% in real estate, and about 8-15% in the stock market. So a business owner would see the profit number fall < 8% and decide there are better investments than a bowling alley. But in our CURRENT society....banks pay 0.5%...real estate is a coin flip...and the stock market is currently just struggling to break even on the year.

So...I ask the question every Republican hates (or simply can't comprehend)....what is "ENOUGH". Enough profit, enough money....what is "enough"? If you own a bowling alley and it's making you $50,000/year...in an economy where most other investments are offering no better than a break even scenario...isn't it a viable investment? Sure...it was a BETTER investment making $418,600 versus $324,678...but its still making you money.

And this is an EXTREME example because we're talking about a truly small business when we're talking bowling alleys. Most of the time when this discussion comes up...it's multi-million or billion dollar companies that are talking the difference between making 15.6% versus 14.8% or something along those lines.

The pressure we see in California is a little different than most areas...but probably compareable to New York City. It isn't that the centers aren't profitable...it's that the value of the land those centers sit on is extremely high. So if you're an owner wanting to make $200,000 annually and it's looking more like $147,000 annually....and along comes a real estate investor offering you 4 million dollars for the facility....you sell. That's what happened to TWO centers in Orange County since 2012. Both privately owned, both making money, but both in areas where the land was just too expensive. And as the proprietors get older and older...eventually they just want to cash out.

But I wanted to make this point simply because it's a common misconception when we hear about places closing or laying people off....that they are doing so to make money...as if NOT doing that will cause them to lose money. That's rarely the case...especially the bigger the company. In the vast majority of these situations it's about what the owner WANTS to make in profit versus what they can reasonably make in profit.

And this ties even into the immigration debate in the country. You hear companies say, "those workers do jobs Americans won't do". That's actually not really true...and is a way of circumventing simple capitalistic, economic principles of supply and demand. For example, I would hate to have a job cleaning hotel rooms. I'd hate it...with a passion. But if Hilton came to me and said, "we really need maids...what would it take to get you to join our team and clean hotel rooms for a living....my price would be rather high. Probably $60/hour minimum with benefits. But see....not everyone is going to give that high a number. You can probably find a legal American who would LOVE to clean hotel rooms for $17/hour. But the hotels claim that's "too high". Is it? Is it not what the market dictates? And in a society where cheap, illegal labor is eliminated....hotels simply would pay $17/hour and charge more and make less profit. But that's not what they "want" to do. It's easier to hire illegal aliens and pay them virtually nothing. Do you honestly think the Marriot would lose money if they doubled their wages? Probably not. They make billions of dollars a year. But see...that's the rub. They don't want to make "millions"...they want to make "billions"....and higher wages would limit that.

Now, the smaller the company, the smaller the profit margins, the harder wage increases are on the company. Like, small farmers. If they only make a 5-10% profit....they could see that evaporated hiring legal, American workers. But hey, right now a banana costs 50 cents. Maybe with legal workers, a banana costs $1. That's capitalism....that's how economics works. Illegal workers shortcut the system and allow companies to circumvent the laws of supply and demand.

What were we talking about? Towels or something?? I forget.

I actually forgot my towel Saturday when I bowled. It was a strange feeling since my pre-shot ritual involves wiping my bowling ball between frames.

[NewToBowling]

I've only been interested in the ins and outs of bowling industry the last year so only until recently have read up on downfall of bowling. In my leagues there are a lot of senior leagues and senior bowlers in regular leagues. What's going to happen when they all die off (harsh but hey, that's reality ). Not much new blood coming into bowling.

[Aslan]

To add some substance to my complete hypothetical...here's something I found online:

CASH FLOWS

The lineage (games) in a well run, state-of-the-art center in the U.S. can range (on the high side) from 12,000-15,000 games per lane per year. The national average for chain operated centers is 9250 lines per year. Internationally, centers in certain new markets have generated as much as 25,000-30,000 lines per year. The average cost per game in the U.S. is approximately $2.00 The average nonbowling revenue is $.67 for every $1.00 of bowling revenue. This is for things such as food and beverage, shoe rental, vending machines, arcade games, etc. A bowling center averaging 11,000 lines per year will generate approximately $36,750 per lane annually. Operating cash flows should be from 25%-33% of gross revenue.

So a 40-lane center should gross $1,470,000.
In my complete hypothetical, I had that at $1,092,000.

Most rough estimates on cost per day seem in line with my estimate of $1850 ($1830 from what I found online).

So, despite not yet being fully analyzed and vetted by our resident fact checker MWhite...I think I guessed pretty close. Now, do centers make $300-$400 thousand a year? Probably not. I'd guess more in the $50,000 range for most centers after taxes and all expenses...but this will vary greatly based on location, pricing, and most significantly whether the center is carrying loan debt. But the data I've found uses $2/game as the average game price and I'd say that's an outdated price. Most centers are closer to $3/game on average.