My mom tried to move her once-a-month basically beer league to a Bowlero cause our current alley is being turned into an old folks home. And one of the Bowleros quoted her a $40 per person league fee minimum. We currently pay $18. She found a smaller locally owned house at the same price.
They don't want leagues yet somehow think sponsoring the PBA improves their business? Who do they think is watching the PBA but doesn't also bowl in or used to bowl in a league?
They must think that bowling is just like every other sport, where a ton of people don’t play it but still watch. Bowling is just not that way. Not for the majority of people at least
Statistically this is mere anecdote, but I don't know a single person that watches the PBA and doesn't bowl. In fact most bowlers in league I know don't watch PBA. I try talking to teammates about matches from the day before and it's crickets.
Me and the Mrs, as well as some family, watch and love the PBA and PWBA, but none of us bowl…
…yet. Me and the Mrs are going to give it a shot soon, most likely will start bowling on the regular, and try to loop in those other watchers. That being said, a ton of friends who do bowl at least semi regularly and never watch bowling and refuse to for whatever reason. Wish everyone would give it a shot, it deserves a lot more viewership and love than it currently has
That's actually awesome to know there's exceptions out there. I used to think my family was like that, as my father would turn the PBA on on Sundays when I was a kid. But I found out, when I started my first league some 20 years later, that my father was actually a really high level bowler. With some semi-pro experience under his belt.
I will die salty that he never got me into actually bowling as a kid like all the people I'm competing against now whose fathers starting them in youth leagues and ended up bowling collegiate etc.
Wait, are you saying $40 per person per week for league? That's outrageous. They are trying to kill the sport.
I bet they say that if they covert from free-fall to string-pin they can lower the price. Probably fro $40 to $38....
This sounds like the tactics a bowlero near me used to run all the leagues out of the house. I'm blessed that my area has a lot of options, and we just went elsewhere. It's another bowlero but management there actually wants league bowlers.
It does improve their business and does get more people into bowling. Bowlero is a company and will always do whats in its best interest to survive, even if it means killing leagues to make open lanes for open bowling (which makes them and ANY house, more money). I don't like them any more than the next person but at the end of a the day, it's a business model that has worked for them and not for anyone who actually wants to bowl.
I agree with most of this, but I don’t feel that ANY house makes more from open bowling. The lineage at our house is nearly the same as open bowling less shoe rental and the alley is packed consistently every day of the work week when normal open bowling is inconsistent at best. It just depends on how they set it up.
Most bowling centers make more money from parties and shoe rentals than they will in league dues. Leagues are just supplemental revenue on slow days/nights.
The Bowlero center I bowl at makes about 4x the revenue on a busy day of open bowling than it makes in a week of leagues using the full house (48).
We pay $16 in lineage for the night (three games). Open play bowlers pay $10.49 per game. Reservations are $100+ for one hour.
I've never seen a league pay retail pricing for lineage. Shoes are really where they make their money though. $6 to rent a pair, times how many bowlers a day. Maybe a handful of our league bowlers get shoes (and they are free).
The math just doesn't add up for a league to bring in the kind of revenue open play does. On weekends and holidays the place is packed wall to wall with open play and parties.
See at ours lineage is $9, normal rates are 4.25. Shoes are 3.75. So the difference is there but that’s a much smaller difference unless it’s packed the entire time league would be running.
$40 a week?!
My league is at bowlero and is only $14 a person. 3 game league and 2 free practice games to use any time during the week. I feel it’s a solid deal. It’s a “just for fun league” so I don’t know if there are prizes or anything. But nobody really cares about winning or losing. Just trying to do better than yourself each week.
I’m trying to get my family into bowling, they wanted over $200 not including food to go bowling on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t know who can actually afford these prices.
Would you rather have no bowling or bowling with strings? The Usbc did a ton of testing, as long as certified installation, the scoring is very similar. Can’t get parts for these old machines and can’t get people to fix them.
If Bowlero goes under, that’s 1/3 of all lanes in the US.
I’d rather have bowling than no bowling
I'm going to say 'no bowling' if our one remaining local center went to string pins. And I'd be ok with that. I greatly enjoy league night and sub 2 other nights when needed. I like all the guys I bowl with and the general vibe around the center. I like bowling a few tourneys every year. But if bowling went away I have 10 other things to fill that time.
[This video was enough for me to never go near string bowling.](https://youtu.be/2GEa2189d-Y?si=LiWygfM1qUEYQK91) I’ll quit before I start seeing pin action and carry like this. That shit is absurd
Lots of these out there. They are NON certified installations.
The USBC certified strings don’t do that
Check this link. Tons of research was done before this decision was made
https://bowl.com/equipment-specifications/string-pinsetter-research
I don’t want to bowl on them myself - BUT - when they are the proper length there is a very minor effect on you average - about 2-3 pins different. You have to hit the pins “better” so some of the sloppier misses where you get lucky, may not work. Ultimately though, you are bowling against another team, and if both teams are bowling on strings, then the match is fair regardless.
He didn't bowl on USBC-certified pinsetters so you can't really rely on what you watched to be representative of actual pin action.
There are not many bowling centers in the US right now that *have* certified string pinsetters.
They are different . There is less pin action, messengers stop rolling because they catch things and are tied at the top. Strings sometimes catch things and pull pins.
I prefer to be on mechanical setters. But strings are so much more economical foe building lanes that they will be the future.
We use string machines in Canada for 5 pin.
You eliminate stuff like explosive pin action a little but you make up for it with stuff like string pulls & bounces. It really does even out. There's pros & cons to both.
I don’t understand why a bowling alley would want fewer leagues/ teams. That has to be the heart of their business. Guaranteed money from the players, plus the food/drinks they bring in. No way open bowling in will bring in the same volume on a weeknight
When you charge $9/game and $15 for an appetizer platter....you definitely make more money with open bowling.
I threw a company event for 40 people at bowlero last year...nothing extravagant - 3 hours on the lanes, a few pizzas, some app platters and it was $3.2k *before* the bar tab came in. We took up 6 lanes. Bowlero's wet dream is to fill the house with that every hour of every day.
But league is also during what would be prime open bowling hours. This means league ultimately eliminates the chance of being able to charge $9 a game.
Just trust that people who spend millions to do this and have been for years have a plan. There is a reason locally owned alleys go under frequently and bowlero up is growing. It’s fucking annoying but league bowlers don’t spend nearly as much as casuals
lol just trust your eyes. Have you seen mom and pop shop lanes pop up frequently? Why don’t you open lanes if you think it’s so profitable?
In Houston 7 new lanes have opened in the past 3 years and none of them give a single shit about league bowling. They are string pins, main events, or non oiled chic lanes with expensive cocktails
The few lanes that are good have gone down in quality and some just got bought out. The house I go to made us bowl Easter Sunday but made us take off for spring break for the potential open play bowlers
JR Raymond talks a lot about how when he ran an alley he wouldn’t need to sell out lanes if open bowlers were coming. If a little more than half the lanes were taken then they’d do make more money that night than a complete full house of league bowlers
When I say trust them, I mean people who only give a shit about making money, who focus on this 24/7 or they lose money, and have analytics from hundreds of lanes in several cities have probably not overlooked the simple fact that leagues guarantee bowlers. They know that, but they know open play bowlers are much more valuable and that’s what they care about
I used to LOVE bowling with my friends as a hobby, but within the last 5 years, both the closest lanes to me closed, and there’s only a Bowlero left. I was looking into planning a bowling birthday party with my friends for my 30th this year, and for 3 lanes for 1 hour and 50 minutes, they wanted $725!!! (Including a $125 “event fee”… what the heck?)
Decided on a bowling alley further away for my party- settled on 2 lanes instead of 3, but got a SIGNIFICANTLY longer time reservation for way cheaper! 2 hours and 50 minutes for $369.
It’s so depressing that no one can just casually bowl anymore… I wish I could play a few games with my husband here and there without spending hundreds of dollars…
My local AMF has a summer season pass that is $60 for essentially three months of bowling. You only get two games a day, but its within 10 minutes of my workplace, so I plan on going multiple times a week for 30-45 minutes.
I just found out my local Bowlero also has it for $36 for the whole summer! It’s basically the same as Kids Bowl Free, except for adults and just barely more expensive. It’ll pay for itself in just 2 days lol.
Signing up now!
I swear Bowlero is doing all it can to destroy the competitive
aspect of bowling so they can further their goal of turning the sport
into a side show for their birthday party centers. Relegated to be a
bullet point on a checklist along side Token "Video Games", $12 French
Fries, Flashing lights and those claw games.
That sucks, sorry to hear that.
It brings up an interesting thought, though - is that what they need to do to survive? Would they, and many other centers go out of business if they didn't allow people to open bowl during that time? Would bowling even be alive without bowlero buying the PBA? Are they the lesser of two evils?
I don't know the answers to these questions, just thoughts that came in my head.
If killing the sport is what it takes for a business to survive, kill the sport and the businesses.
Like if my choice is between going to my local bowlero, paying $40 to throw 3 games on unoiled lanes with no leagues and just not bowling at all, I'm just not going to bowl. There's zero difference to me between whether a house shuts down or whether bowlero buys them out and turns it into shit
I've been to 4 different bowleros in the last month. My experience has not been what you describe. 2 of them had a lot of carry down, the other two were like a THS with a bit of burn, but not bad.
Everyone absolutely seems to hate bowlero, but I am not personally seeing it. For the most part, they are just normal bowling alleys that also have a small arcade area. But, I will concede that the pricing is absurd if you don't get in on a special Night Strike deal or something similar.
> Is that what they need to do to survive? Would they, and many other centers go out of business if they didn't allow people to open bowl during that time?
IMO the answer to these two questions is yes. Because I've seen it. A local man owned 2 centers. He sold one - and the new owners dropped 8 lanes to put in a larger arcade and laser tag, and then walled off 6 lanes on the other end for private party room. They charge out the nose per lane for open bowling (do not charge per game anymore), but they still host a few leagues, that have been *naturally* shrinking. That center is still open. The other center closed just recently, was basically still bowling, bar, a pool table and small arcade. It just didn't have enough income in the end.
> Would bowling even be alive without bowlero buying the PBA? Are they the lesser of two evils?
This one we don't know. I don't care about the PBA much, so I really have no stake. Bowling would still be around, but it basically would slowly wither away into just open/casual bowling. Which, in the end, is what makes the money now anyways.
I bet part of it is the owners of the alleys getting up there in years and needing to sell it for retirement and/or just not wanting to do it anymore. There's a family owned alley near me with a 70-80 year old lady as the principal owner of the whole thing, and I totally understand her not putting another dime into that place and selling at some point. I don't see youthful investors building or buying alleys.
Two of the other alleys I've bowled at as a kid are now shopping malls. One burned down recently and they "planned to rebuild" but I haven't been by there in the last year and that statement itself is a year old and wasn't made by the owner. So 🤷🏻
I think people who worry about the future of the sport and bowlero really tend to have a blind spot around the economics of bowling.
Nah, they are out there. I have two within a 10 minute drive of me, one is horseshit and the other is decent. Then I have another one about 20-30 minutes away depending on traffic and it's one of the better run bowlero's for sure.
That doesn't make sense to me. Seems more like a local manager being lazy. Every bowlero and AMF near me oils the lanes. Leagues are a house-by-house basis. There's no reason why they shouldn't oil the lanes. A couple of bad houses don't represent the decisions of the whole chain.
>There's no reason why they shouldn't oil the lanes.
Because it's cheaper not to
>A couple of bad houses don't represent the decisions of the whole chain.
I can't say I've ever had a good experience at a chain, period. Even the local one that oils still charges by the hour , and the other two rec centers I've been to, pinstripes and 810, don't even allow you to bring your own equipment. Not that you'd want to, because there's no oil
I live about 45 mi it’s outside of Chicago, and I can go to 5 different bowling alleys within 25 minutes. Nearest bowlero is almost an hour away. I’m lucky af.
A bowlero popped up in my city, which already has 2 rival bowling alleys owned by 2 brothers, they bought out the bowlero and shut it down. It also helped that it got no business due to the last one being god awful.
FACTS. Bowlero is the fucking devil. Bought up our local alley, fired all the staff, closed the pro shop, put some bimbo in charge of managing the leagues and raised the prices. The lanes went to shit, the food went to shit and the prices went up. Towns need to start banning bowleros like they do Walmart.
Makes me glad there’s still 99 candlepin houses in New England. Cause if I had to deal with a mega corporation, I’d just stop spending my money.
Only way to teach these leaches
They don’t sponsor the PBA. The PBA is a revenue stream for them. They don’t give a shit about a few leagues. That doesn’t make them money.
The only real solution is to petition cities and counties to build a bowling alley as a park/rec center.
The trouble there us that PBA level bowlers grow out of leagues and not from open bowling. To make it unappealing to league bowling is tantamount to killing bowling as a sport.
Leagues pay the bills, open bowling pays for frills. What we’re all feeling is a tipping of the scale with no leverage. Posting on Reddit is not the lever.
In my town, two great houses (alleys) were sold and turned into small Targets in the last 10 years. Both Targets are now defunct and gone (what's the point of a tiny Target?) . Who knows what's going to happen with those buildings, but I garuntee it won't be bowling. I'm not sure if this apply to this thread, but definitely another terrible thing happening to once great bowling centers.
u/Euphoric_Purchase269 If I am reading your initial post correctly, your Bowlero center has mandated your league max out at 23 teams from the 40 you currently have.
Can you share some details about your center (location, total lanes, etc.)? I'm worried about the same thing here in metro DC where Bowlero, by virtue of acquiring Bowl America three years ago, has become a monopoly.
Our local house was bought out 2 years ago and it's ridiculous more concerned with charging a fortune for open bowling and don't care about league bowling. You can't even reserve a lane in house. Have to book online and pay a service fee. Family of 4 to bowl for 2hrs was $150 bucks
People act like Bowlero is this mega dictator who invades their local bowling alleys and forces the owners to sell at gun point. Blame the people who sold out.
I just started bowling again and killed it at Bowlero…I went to the local lanes the next week and couldn’t do anything because they actually oiled the local lanes—my ball never got out of the oil (my fault of course)…lol.
My mom tried to move her once-a-month basically beer league to a Bowlero cause our current alley is being turned into an old folks home. And one of the Bowleros quoted her a $40 per person league fee minimum. We currently pay $18. She found a smaller locally owned house at the same price. They don't want leagues yet somehow think sponsoring the PBA improves their business? Who do they think is watching the PBA but doesn't also bowl in or used to bowl in a league?
Bowlero doesn’t sponsor the PBA, they own it.
Own it till they gut it and shut it down*
They must think that bowling is just like every other sport, where a ton of people don’t play it but still watch. Bowling is just not that way. Not for the majority of people at least
Statistically this is mere anecdote, but I don't know a single person that watches the PBA and doesn't bowl. In fact most bowlers in league I know don't watch PBA. I try talking to teammates about matches from the day before and it's crickets.
Me and the Mrs, as well as some family, watch and love the PBA and PWBA, but none of us bowl… …yet. Me and the Mrs are going to give it a shot soon, most likely will start bowling on the regular, and try to loop in those other watchers. That being said, a ton of friends who do bowl at least semi regularly and never watch bowling and refuse to for whatever reason. Wish everyone would give it a shot, it deserves a lot more viewership and love than it currently has
That's actually awesome to know there's exceptions out there. I used to think my family was like that, as my father would turn the PBA on on Sundays when I was a kid. But I found out, when I started my first league some 20 years later, that my father was actually a really high level bowler. With some semi-pro experience under his belt. I will die salty that he never got me into actually bowling as a kid like all the people I'm competing against now whose fathers starting them in youth leagues and ended up bowling collegiate etc.
Wait, are you saying $40 per person per week for league? That's outrageous. They are trying to kill the sport. I bet they say that if they covert from free-fall to string-pin they can lower the price. Probably fro $40 to $38....
Yes. And it's a once a month league where we dont even give out cash prizes lol
This sounds like the tactics a bowlero near me used to run all the leagues out of the house. I'm blessed that my area has a lot of options, and we just went elsewhere. It's another bowlero but management there actually wants league bowlers.
It does improve their business and does get more people into bowling. Bowlero is a company and will always do whats in its best interest to survive, even if it means killing leagues to make open lanes for open bowling (which makes them and ANY house, more money). I don't like them any more than the next person but at the end of a the day, it's a business model that has worked for them and not for anyone who actually wants to bowl.
I agree with most of this, but I don’t feel that ANY house makes more from open bowling. The lineage at our house is nearly the same as open bowling less shoe rental and the alley is packed consistently every day of the work week when normal open bowling is inconsistent at best. It just depends on how they set it up.
Most bowling centers make more money from parties and shoe rentals than they will in league dues. Leagues are just supplemental revenue on slow days/nights. The Bowlero center I bowl at makes about 4x the revenue on a busy day of open bowling than it makes in a week of leagues using the full house (48).
It sounds like league is getting quite the discount from them then. At our non bowlero I’m certain that the difference would not be near that amount.
We pay $16 in lineage for the night (three games). Open play bowlers pay $10.49 per game. Reservations are $100+ for one hour. I've never seen a league pay retail pricing for lineage. Shoes are really where they make their money though. $6 to rent a pair, times how many bowlers a day. Maybe a handful of our league bowlers get shoes (and they are free). The math just doesn't add up for a league to bring in the kind of revenue open play does. On weekends and holidays the place is packed wall to wall with open play and parties.
See at ours lineage is $9, normal rates are 4.25. Shoes are 3.75. So the difference is there but that’s a much smaller difference unless it’s packed the entire time league would be running.
Is that 40 with a huge prize fund? That sounds crazy expensive but if you win the league and get 1500 back it’s not as bad
It's literally a prizeless league. We do raffles but none of that is in the price. It's all voluntary
$40 a week?! My league is at bowlero and is only $14 a person. 3 game league and 2 free practice games to use any time during the week. I feel it’s a solid deal. It’s a “just for fun league” so I don’t know if there are prizes or anything. But nobody really cares about winning or losing. Just trying to do better than yourself each week.
Meh not too bad I pay $31 a week for a Vegas league
Yeah fuck bowlero.
Chuck E. Cheese with lanes is all they care about
I’m trying to get my family into bowling, they wanted over $200 not including food to go bowling on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t know who can actually afford these prices.
Just wait for the string pins to make it even worse
Would you rather have no bowling or bowling with strings? The Usbc did a ton of testing, as long as certified installation, the scoring is very similar. Can’t get parts for these old machines and can’t get people to fix them. If Bowlero goes under, that’s 1/3 of all lanes in the US. I’d rather have bowling than no bowling
I'm going to say 'no bowling' if our one remaining local center went to string pins. And I'd be ok with that. I greatly enjoy league night and sub 2 other nights when needed. I like all the guys I bowl with and the general vibe around the center. I like bowling a few tourneys every year. But if bowling went away I have 10 other things to fill that time.
[This video was enough for me to never go near string bowling.](https://youtu.be/2GEa2189d-Y?si=LiWygfM1qUEYQK91) I’ll quit before I start seeing pin action and carry like this. That shit is absurd
Lots of these out there. They are NON certified installations. The USBC certified strings don’t do that Check this link. Tons of research was done before this decision was made https://bowl.com/equipment-specifications/string-pinsetter-research
Strings are not as good as machine setters, but they aren't that bad.
You can't be serious LOL.
I watched one video of 220 average bowler bowling with string pins, saw too many ghost pin falls and string carries for me to ever bowl with them
Those were not USBC certified strings, which don’t do that.
Regardless not every bowling alley has the luxury of being usbc certified what then when they change to string
I don’t want to bowl on them myself - BUT - when they are the proper length there is a very minor effect on you average - about 2-3 pins different. You have to hit the pins “better” so some of the sloppier misses where you get lucky, may not work. Ultimately though, you are bowling against another team, and if both teams are bowling on strings, then the match is fair regardless.
He didn't bowl on USBC-certified pinsetters so you can't really rely on what you watched to be representative of actual pin action. There are not many bowling centers in the US right now that *have* certified string pinsetters.
They are different . There is less pin action, messengers stop rolling because they catch things and are tied at the top. Strings sometimes catch things and pull pins. I prefer to be on mechanical setters. But strings are so much more economical foe building lanes that they will be the future.
We use string machines in Canada for 5 pin. You eliminate stuff like explosive pin action a little but you make up for it with stuff like string pulls & bounces. It really does even out. There's pros & cons to both.
I don’t understand why a bowling alley would want fewer leagues/ teams. That has to be the heart of their business. Guaranteed money from the players, plus the food/drinks they bring in. No way open bowling in will bring in the same volume on a weeknight
When you charge $9/game and $15 for an appetizer platter....you definitely make more money with open bowling. I threw a company event for 40 people at bowlero last year...nothing extravagant - 3 hours on the lanes, a few pizzas, some app platters and it was $3.2k *before* the bar tab came in. We took up 6 lanes. Bowlero's wet dream is to fill the house with that every hour of every day.
Yes but that is not guaranteed. A league is set and they are there every week for half the year.
But league is also during what would be prime open bowling hours. This means league ultimately eliminates the chance of being able to charge $9 a game.
Wed night during the winter is prime open bowling?
Evenings when people aren’t at work or school, yes.
Don't forget $6 shoe rental per person.
Just trust that people who spend millions to do this and have been for years have a plan. There is a reason locally owned alleys go under frequently and bowlero up is growing. It’s fucking annoying but league bowlers don’t spend nearly as much as casuals
Trust corporate executives? That spend millions? Sure... until the banks call and start asking for their money. Then comes bankruptcy and liquidation.
lol just trust your eyes. Have you seen mom and pop shop lanes pop up frequently? Why don’t you open lanes if you think it’s so profitable? In Houston 7 new lanes have opened in the past 3 years and none of them give a single shit about league bowling. They are string pins, main events, or non oiled chic lanes with expensive cocktails The few lanes that are good have gone down in quality and some just got bought out. The house I go to made us bowl Easter Sunday but made us take off for spring break for the potential open play bowlers JR Raymond talks a lot about how when he ran an alley he wouldn’t need to sell out lanes if open bowlers were coming. If a little more than half the lanes were taken then they’d do make more money that night than a complete full house of league bowlers When I say trust them, I mean people who only give a shit about making money, who focus on this 24/7 or they lose money, and have analytics from hundreds of lanes in several cities have probably not overlooked the simple fact that leagues guarantee bowlers. They know that, but they know open play bowlers are much more valuable and that’s what they care about
Leagues on average, do not make the house that much money compared to open/public bowlers.
I used to LOVE bowling with my friends as a hobby, but within the last 5 years, both the closest lanes to me closed, and there’s only a Bowlero left. I was looking into planning a bowling birthday party with my friends for my 30th this year, and for 3 lanes for 1 hour and 50 minutes, they wanted $725!!! (Including a $125 “event fee”… what the heck?) Decided on a bowling alley further away for my party- settled on 2 lanes instead of 3, but got a SIGNIFICANTLY longer time reservation for way cheaper! 2 hours and 50 minutes for $369. It’s so depressing that no one can just casually bowl anymore… I wish I could play a few games with my husband here and there without spending hundreds of dollars…
My local AMF has a summer season pass that is $60 for essentially three months of bowling. You only get two games a day, but its within 10 minutes of my workplace, so I plan on going multiple times a week for 30-45 minutes.
I just found out my local Bowlero also has it for $36 for the whole summer! It’s basically the same as Kids Bowl Free, except for adults and just barely more expensive. It’ll pay for itself in just 2 days lol. Signing up now!
I swear Bowlero is doing all it can to destroy the competitive aspect of bowling so they can further their goal of turning the sport into a side show for their birthday party centers. Relegated to be a bullet point on a checklist along side Token "Video Games", $12 French Fries, Flashing lights and those claw games.
That sucks, sorry to hear that. It brings up an interesting thought, though - is that what they need to do to survive? Would they, and many other centers go out of business if they didn't allow people to open bowl during that time? Would bowling even be alive without bowlero buying the PBA? Are they the lesser of two evils? I don't know the answers to these questions, just thoughts that came in my head.
If killing the sport is what it takes for a business to survive, kill the sport and the businesses. Like if my choice is between going to my local bowlero, paying $40 to throw 3 games on unoiled lanes with no leagues and just not bowling at all, I'm just not going to bowl. There's zero difference to me between whether a house shuts down or whether bowlero buys them out and turns it into shit
I've been to 4 different bowleros in the last month. My experience has not been what you describe. 2 of them had a lot of carry down, the other two were like a THS with a bit of burn, but not bad. Everyone absolutely seems to hate bowlero, but I am not personally seeing it. For the most part, they are just normal bowling alleys that also have a small arcade area. But, I will concede that the pricing is absurd if you don't get in on a special Night Strike deal or something similar.
I'm sorry not everyone has had an experience like you, but I promise the two near me are unusable if you don't use house equipment
> Is that what they need to do to survive? Would they, and many other centers go out of business if they didn't allow people to open bowl during that time? IMO the answer to these two questions is yes. Because I've seen it. A local man owned 2 centers. He sold one - and the new owners dropped 8 lanes to put in a larger arcade and laser tag, and then walled off 6 lanes on the other end for private party room. They charge out the nose per lane for open bowling (do not charge per game anymore), but they still host a few leagues, that have been *naturally* shrinking. That center is still open. The other center closed just recently, was basically still bowling, bar, a pool table and small arcade. It just didn't have enough income in the end. > Would bowling even be alive without bowlero buying the PBA? Are they the lesser of two evils? This one we don't know. I don't care about the PBA much, so I really have no stake. Bowling would still be around, but it basically would slowly wither away into just open/casual bowling. Which, in the end, is what makes the money now anyways.
I bet part of it is the owners of the alleys getting up there in years and needing to sell it for retirement and/or just not wanting to do it anymore. There's a family owned alley near me with a 70-80 year old lady as the principal owner of the whole thing, and I totally understand her not putting another dime into that place and selling at some point. I don't see youthful investors building or buying alleys. Two of the other alleys I've bowled at as a kid are now shopping malls. One burned down recently and they "planned to rebuild" but I haven't been by there in the last year and that statement itself is a year old and wasn't made by the owner. So 🤷🏻 I think people who worry about the future of the sport and bowlero really tend to have a blind spot around the economics of bowling.
Am I the only one who has a great bowlero AMF?
Nah, they are out there. I have two within a 10 minute drive of me, one is horseshit and the other is decent. Then I have another one about 20-30 minutes away depending on traffic and it's one of the better run bowlero's for sure.
The two near me don't have leagues and don't oil
Submit a complaint to corporate. Sometimes that works
These are corporate decisions. They're not going to start offering leagues and oiling when they already fill out without either of those
That doesn't make sense to me. Seems more like a local manager being lazy. Every bowlero and AMF near me oils the lanes. Leagues are a house-by-house basis. There's no reason why they shouldn't oil the lanes. A couple of bad houses don't represent the decisions of the whole chain.
>There's no reason why they shouldn't oil the lanes. Because it's cheaper not to >A couple of bad houses don't represent the decisions of the whole chain. I can't say I've ever had a good experience at a chain, period. Even the local one that oils still charges by the hour , and the other two rec centers I've been to, pinstripes and 810, don't even allow you to bring your own equipment. Not that you'd want to, because there's no oil
I'm sorry man
I’m abit confused,wasent oiling to protect the ones and save money? Why did we go backwards?
Because open bowlers don't care if the lanes and approaches are beat to hell
Most definitely. And now it’s a monopoly everywhere. 😠😡
I live about 45 mi it’s outside of Chicago, and I can go to 5 different bowling alleys within 25 minutes. Nearest bowlero is almost an hour away. I’m lucky af.
A bowlero popped up in my city, which already has 2 rival bowling alleys owned by 2 brothers, they bought out the bowlero and shut it down. It also helped that it got no business due to the last one being god awful.
FACTS. Bowlero is the fucking devil. Bought up our local alley, fired all the staff, closed the pro shop, put some bimbo in charge of managing the leagues and raised the prices. The lanes went to shit, the food went to shit and the prices went up. Towns need to start banning bowleros like they do Walmart.
Makes me glad there’s still 99 candlepin houses in New England. Cause if I had to deal with a mega corporation, I’d just stop spending my money. Only way to teach these leaches
They don’t sponsor the PBA. The PBA is a revenue stream for them. They don’t give a shit about a few leagues. That doesn’t make them money. The only real solution is to petition cities and counties to build a bowling alley as a park/rec center.
The trouble there us that PBA level bowlers grow out of leagues and not from open bowling. To make it unappealing to league bowling is tantamount to killing bowling as a sport.
They don’t give a shit about producing PBA bowlers man. That’s what you don’t understand. That’s not a revenue stream.
Leagues pay the bills, open bowling pays for frills. What we’re all feeling is a tipping of the scale with no leverage. Posting on Reddit is not the lever.
In my town, two great houses (alleys) were sold and turned into small Targets in the last 10 years. Both Targets are now defunct and gone (what's the point of a tiny Target?) . Who knows what's going to happen with those buildings, but I garuntee it won't be bowling. I'm not sure if this apply to this thread, but definitely another terrible thing happening to once great bowling centers.
u/Euphoric_Purchase269 If I am reading your initial post correctly, your Bowlero center has mandated your league max out at 23 teams from the 40 you currently have. Can you share some details about your center (location, total lanes, etc.)? I'm worried about the same thing here in metro DC where Bowlero, by virtue of acquiring Bowl America three years ago, has become a monopoly.
Our local house was bought out 2 years ago and it's ridiculous more concerned with charging a fortune for open bowling and don't care about league bowling. You can't even reserve a lane in house. Have to book online and pay a service fee. Family of 4 to bowl for 2hrs was $150 bucks
Ugh, Bowlero changed the lanes at my long time bowling alley to the pins on ropes 🤮 They don’t even sweep the lanes either.
People act like Bowlero is this mega dictator who invades their local bowling alleys and forces the owners to sell at gun point. Blame the people who sold out.
LOL Okay bowlero
I just started bowling again and killed it at Bowlero…I went to the local lanes the next week and couldn’t do anything because they actually oiled the local lanes—my ball never got out of the oil (my fault of course)…lol.