With all these posts about bowling going downhill and no longer being taken seriously, I have decided to enlighten you on my opinion. You may not agree, but I'll just pretend you do anyway.

I feel one of the main reasons bowling is losing popularity is price. If someone wants to get started in a sport, any sport, and take it seriously, then you have to get the equipment for it.

Baseball: bat: 60 dollars. Glove: 30 dollars. ball: supplied Uniform: usually supplied, or available on payment plan.

Football: ball: supplied Uniform: payment plan Pads: 100 dollars.

Bowling: price per game varies between 1.60, to 2.50, depending on location. Ball: 65.00 for a cheapie to 250.oo for a good one. Plus you have to buy new ones as your game improves to stay competitive.  Shoes: 40.00 to 180.00 league prices: 10.00 to 15.00 a week. Per league. Then you add in the headaches of constantly changing lane conditions, broken lanes, stupid mechanics, so on and so forth.

Then you have what happens in my local house. It is almost to bowl more than two games before you have some wanna be pro- no it all, trying to tell you how to improve your game, which is fine, I can use all the advice I can get, but as soon as they leave here comes another one telling you the exact opposite of what the first one told you. Meanwhile if you try to offer any advice to them, like you see them dropping their shoulder, or turning on the release, they want to throw a fit and complain about you bothering them.

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You can always hit em hard when you've got the balls

Lefties are the only people in their right minds.

no1bucsfan

Edited on 12/25/2003 10:22 AM

I don't think price has much to do with it. I think
the major problem is the concept that this is a sport
participated in by beer drinking, low lifes. It just
isn't prestigious like golf or tennis.

very true sawbones. I guess golfers are like everyone else, if it's new it must be better. But I am almost sure that there are less new "good" clubs that come out per year, than bowling balls.
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You can always hit em hard when you've got the balls

Lefties are the only people in their right minds.

no1bucsfan

Bowling near me during primetime, non-league rates range anywhere from 3.75-5.75 per game ! (5.75 is classic bowl in Daly City on Friday from 5PM on.)  I took a long break from bowling and prices went up by an average of 1.25 per game just in that short time.  It's an expensive sport.  I think that the gouging hits people even more if they are from the SF Bay Area.  It seems prices are through the roof these days.  

Now it seems that most places just do it by the hour, which is also pretty pricey and demands less enjoyment.  If I am paying 20-25 an hour for the lane, I don't want to sit back and chat between frames.  I want to get up there and bowl.  

All of these things are tangentially related in that they are negative parts of the game that lead to a decline.  I don't think anyone is doing anything malicious in raising prices at all however.  I think the guys who run the houses are doing what they need to do to survive.  In a sport where things are going downhill, owners will inevitably do things that lead to more decline.  It's like struggling in quick sand.
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Buzzsaws are very, very dangerous.