At my old house all our senior leagues were not sanctioned. We ran the leagues during the "dead" time at the house, early morning or early afternoon during the week. Most of the leagues fees ran around $5 - $6 a week. No prize fund, house donated 4 1st place trophies.
The only time I could remember open lanes was during the women's early morning league. House was full (24 lanes) otherwise.
For a little excitement, we ran $1 handicap brackets and $1 high came pots.
Now you tell me, was the house losing money with such a rate? The owner told me those leagues generated around $40,000 a year for him just in lineage and paid for his maintenance and upgrades they made to the house each year.
As far as us bowlers on the league, we could care less about ABC awards. If we happened to hit one, we knew it was just by accident.
Most of us bowled 3 leagues a week for what it would cost us in one of the big money sandbagger leagues.
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