Not trying to be a pessimist, but 15 years ago in my area bowling was very popular, to an extent still is but some of the trends are very disturbing to me:

The formation of USBC - thought at the time it would be a good idea to merge ABC/WIBC. After 10 years of this since 2005, I do not see the benefit of merging the two bodies. All I see is increase in fees and for what?

The PBA, a sport 10 years ago was my favorite to watch on tv and attend in person is surviving on a thread. I used to record every show but now...who cares? It's not a real tour anymore, nothing is live except for a couple major events and most of the events are in one city then eventually may have it an another city. Kind of hard to take seriously when the events are not live and not having a tour for everyone to see.

Bowling alleys. What year in your area was the last time a bowling alley was built? Entertainment centers like Main Event or Lucky Strike do not count. These places don't usually have leagues. They cater everything from kids to upper class drinking adults. I counted all the bowling alleys in my area and I came up with 1988 was the last time a bowling alley was built, also every time a bowling alley has been closed down nothing has took it's place.

Also, Brunswick selling their company to Bolmore was probably the nail in the coffin. Brunswick was the best thing to happen to bowling in the 1980's putting alleys everywhere, AMF has always sucked then Bolmore did nothing to improve them not they practically have a monopoly on it. Let's not talk about what Bolmore did to my Brunswick bowling alley's bar.

...I believe that is where it should start ..analyzing why non-beginner--non-casual bowlers are no longer bowling league and look for ways to  correct that trend.

Brad

That will be a huge challenge.  For example, I am a 200 average bowler that has been bowling for over 20 years.  I would love to bowl a sanctioned league, doubles, Saturday mornings at 9:30am (if such a thing even existed around here.)  This will never happen because the Juniors take over the house on Saturday mornings, as well as birthday parties.  Even though my local center is 48 lanes, they will not even consider devoting lanes to an adult doubles league at a time when they have Juniors and high profit birthday parties. 

I currently bowl a 4-man evening league, but it is a huge inconvenience as I have to get permission at work to leave early on that night to drive an hour to the bowling center.  Sometimes I wonder if it is worth the hassle.  Being able to bowl Saturday mornings would be perfect for my schedule, but not necessarily for other people or the bowling center itself.

As the die hard bowlers get older, their schedules change and it makes it much more difficult to find a league that meets their needs.

I can tell you that one of the problems in my area is the ONLY center doesn't have a USBC  Sanctioned youth league. This makes getting scholarships to not possible

Just a little note of intro...I'm new here.  I was an avid bowler during high school (back in the late 80's to early 90's)...stopped when I got to college (just too busy) and haven't really picked it back up.  I went from a competitive tournament bowler on the youth/junior level, to basically bowling maybe 5 or 6 times over the next 25 years (and I don't think I ever really stopped loving bowling).

I think the reason for bowling's decline is merely the change in parenting styles over the past several decades.  When I was younger, most kids had one activity at a time and it wasn't usually year round.  I had baseball a night or two per week, maybe Saturday morning. There was time left over during non-baseball season or even DURING baseball season for parents to do other things...maybe go out to a Tuesday night bowling league with his buddies.

Nowadays, a kid who plays baseball also plays Fall Ball.  He might go to clinics in the winter.  He'll play on his little league team in the spring as well as a travel team that extends into the summer.  He might also have a camp later in the Summer.  And a lot of kids will have another activity on top of that that gets squeezed in.  If you have two or three kids, there is absolutely no time left to commit.  You certainly can't carve out one block of time each and every week at the same time.  Add to the fact that today, most households are either single parent (divorced) or dual income (I.e., no stay at home parent).  So, both parents are scrambling every moment they aren't working just to keep life moving forward.

I think the one way to fix it is to market bowling for the whole family.  I started bowling again because I have a few kids who started league bowling this year.  I have a couple special needs children (large, blended family) who aren't really suited for the typical baseball, football, soccer, etc. types of sports and needed an activity, so we got them into bowling.  But, I think bowling *could* regain popularity if it was marketed a little better.

But if you really want *adult* participation, you have to target the "Mom/Dad audience".  Youth/adult leagues are great for that.  Also, I remember in my youth, some of the larger houses would have an adult tournament going on at the same time as youth tournaments (or have them back to back...youth in the morning, adults right after).  Those were the ones my Dad would bowl in, because he was already there.

I think the other barrier was already mentioned...there is an intimidation factor that seems to be present now as bowling has evolved.  Even as an experienced bowler, I find myself swamped looking at bowling today.  25 years ago, if you were aspiring to up your game, you'd by a Hammer.  EVERY SINGLE decent bowler had at least one hammer in their bags (I had a Black Hammer, Blue Hammer and Blue Pearl...my Dad had a Black, Red, Red Pearl and a Nail).  Now, I come on this forum wondering what the first new ball I should buy is and there are 117 PAGES of bowling balls.  25 years ago, we new about top weight, side weight.  Now, I need to learn RG, differential, mass bias, PAPs, PIPs and POOPs (okay, I made some of that up).  I know you can walk into a pro shop and have someone give you something appropriate...but there was a feel 25 years ago that if you bought a Hammer, you were serious.  Now, it's just not the same.  So, there's a barrier...even I feel it and I shot 268 last week bowling for really just the second time this year.

I liken it to video games.  When I was a kid, even though I spent hours per day playing, my dad could just sit down and play with me.  Games were simple and it didn't take much to be able to have fun together.  Now, my kids ask me to play with them and I join there game and I have a character with an "inventory" that has 36 pages containing 197 different weapons and ammo.  There is so much going on on the screen that I feel like I can't even really play.  There's an extreme "barrier to entry", if you will.  As such, kids don't play video games with their dads anymore (really).

I'm not even going to get into scoring.  The number of 300 games being shot nowadays (even with less participation)...I don't think it's good for the game.  I live in Delaware, so Jim Johnson Jr was a legend in Delaware when I was bowling (he was still bowling local and hadn't really gone on the tour yet).  He held the ABC record for career 300 games at 27.  I saw him bowl a few in local tournaments to get into the low 30's.  Now, there are lots of guys with over 100?  A 900 series was a legend...now it's been done over two dozen times?  I think the inflated scores goes a long way to further divide the newer player from the "elite", to the detriment of the game's appeal.

Today, it is more often than not to see folks work 2 or 3 jobs, often with varying start and stop times. It is often next to impossible for today's worker to commit to any off-duty activity, whether it's bowling or taking evening college courses, or anything else. Working families today are pretty much on a 24/7 treadmill, unfortunately.

As someone who has always had time for bowling, I can't imagine how awful that lifestyle must be.

Quote from: Good Times Good Times on May 17, 2016, 01:54:43 PM

Quote from: bergman on May 17, 2016, 01:32:09 PM

Today, it is more often than not to see folks work 2 or 3 jobs, often with varying start and stop times. It is often next to impossible for today's worker to commit to any off-duty activity, whether it's bowling or taking evening college courses, or anything else. Working families today are pretty much on a 24/7 treadmill, unfortunately.

As someone who has always had time for bowling, I can't imagine how awful that lifestyle must be.

I don't know if I'd call it "awful". I've won my share of bowling tournaments, bowled 300, 800 (back when it was a much harder feat...26 years ago now).  I'd rather watch one of my kids do it now than accomplish it myself. It would mean a lot more for them.

I totally understand that, I was simply referring to.....what is essentially a ball-and-chain to the desk.  Living FOR work has to be an awful experience.  I couldn't imagine just quitting all my hobbies for my employer. 

Don't get me wrong......I wake my ass up everyday and work hard, pay taxes etc, but just simply existing around my employment just doesn't seem, TO ME, much of a lifestyle.  It’s OK in its place but cannot be the wellspring of all fulfillment nor occupy all our hours.