Sounds like an AMF center.

You can have all of the "education" as far as the business side of bowling goes, but if you aren't a good bowler, don't employ a good bowler, or confide in a good bowler, then odds are you are going to struggle to find something that keeps the good bowlers around. Please, though, don't regard every "good bowler" as an expert lane person - that's hardly the case. I have known some decent bowlers who were excellent lane people because they were smart and studious about the game and the variables of the game and on the flipside I know many a "good bowler" who knew nothing of the intricacies of the game. I'll take a marginal bowler who can read the lanes and be objective about the adjustments over the "self-proclaimed 'local pro'" who wouldn't know the difference between blowout and breakdown.

Back in 1998 when my ex-wife was running a bowling center in Georgia, we had a mechanic/laneman who argued with me that his high game was a 310 game and that he carried a 240 average. Before you all tell me that's impossible (unless you want to add in handicap), I know that already and you get the point that this guy was not only an idiot, but a b.s. artist as well. I told him he should go pro in the real world, not just in his own head. He said I was jealous and didn't know bowling. I guess in his defense he didn't know that, at that time, I had been bowling for 20 years, but that's far from the point. Anyhow...

One night about a month into the season, this here genius decides he's going to tinker with the shot "because he knows how to bowl." Tinkering is, um, a polite way of putting it I suppose ("f'd up" would be more like it, but I digress). I never had such a horrible look in my life. There was no hook area thanks to him "lightening the stripper mix". Even my most aggressive ball at the time (a matte finish Triton Elite) wouldn't budge anywhere. To top it off, he messed with the shims in the oiling machine which complicated matters for later and not only did my ex-wife and I have to totally redo the shims, which meant 2 days of trial and error of getting things back in line again and also meant money wasted on oil and stripper, but we almost lost bowlers because of this moron.

When he asked me, "Wow was the shot?", I looked at him in amazement and said, "I don't know. Was there one out there? I couldn't tell under that Valdez spill that was out there. But next time you decide to change something, here's a piece of solid advice - don't!" Oh, yeah, the stonechuckers loved it...until their plastic balls stopped coming back. I shot something barely over 500 which was high for the night. If there was a plus, shooting 10 pins was cake because I didn't have to worry about my ball hooking away, and I left plenty of them.

I guess payback for ol' stupid there was pushing balls back all night. Man, was he cussin', but not near as much as the league was.

But anyhow, that's what happens when you let the "village bowling idiot" make adjustments to the shot.

See, I have a really hard time understanding this.

Why would any bowling center not care about leagues?? A bowling league is guaranteed income for the center...on X night, Y league is guaranteeing Z lanes with 3-5 bowlers on each lane, for N number of weeks. Guaranteed, in writing, with a contract.

On an open bowling night, there is no such contract. One night, the place might be packed, the next, it's empty. The rates might be higher, and the center might make more money per bowler, but there is no guarantee that ANYONE will be bowling that night. Even if a center is tun by non-bowlers, they should be able to figure this out, if they have any business sense. It's the same reason companies sell their stuff to WalMart....they may have to sell at a cheaper price, but they're going to sell more of them, guaranteed.

There's a smart man on the board, and I agree with you 100%. As someone who's worked in a bowling center and dealt with the money side of matters, let me give you my perspective.

Part of the issue that some owners/managers think is that "league bowlers aren't worth the trouble" because, admittedly, some of them can be demanding and downright whiny when it comes to bowling, so that sort of negativity turns off some owners/managers, especially if they aren't bowlers themselves. They see most open bowlers don't complain about the shot, or because someone is taking pictures 6 pairs down, so they'd rather have those "non-whiners" than the "everyweek paying whiners." What some don't realize is that a good league bowler is also a better open bowler. Not only will a dedicated league bowler bowl once, twice, maybe three leagues a week, but they may also come in for practice as well. Some bowlers you can count on for two to three times (some for more) what they pay in lineage for the week - and that doesn't even cover money paid to the snack bar or the like. In return, the league bowler expects a discount (and they should) because they are guaranteed money and expect their loyalty to be rewarded with a little "loyalty" from the bowling center as well.

But "glow bowling" and other gimmicks like that bring quick money - and good money - but its lasting power is weak. The money you earn through open bowling is no more lucrative than through a solid league base because the investment you have to make to keep open bowlers coming back negates any sort of perceived "higher profit" from having them as patrons.

The perceived problem some managers and owners see is the time and effort it takes to "appease" league bowlers. It takes an hour or more to dress the lanes. Oil isn't cheap. Stripper isn't cheap either. You have to have at least one snack bar person, one desk person, and a pinchaser at the minimum and depending on the size of the center you can easily have more staff than that.

In the age of "instant gratification" and gimmicks, open bowling is a perceived profit maker. It isn't, except in the rarest of cases. I'm sure usr bin geek (Steve) could give even more examples from his own experience as a proprietor. This isn't an easy business and the profits aren't generally lucrative, but it can be an honest business that's rewarding in more ways than one.

I've always said the same thing about why would a center want to focus on open play as opposed to leagues. Brian pretty much covered it. Instant gratification and most of the open bowl players that are not league bowlers don't complain much. Plus they pay full price for everything, no discounts and usually need to rent shoes which often is at $4 or more a pop.

In the case of AMF they want to focus more on the snack bar and bar money. That's coming from a letter/article of the CEO in a trade magazine. In my area they got rid of most of the center managers that were bowlers, some who were active in trying to recruit bowlers and leagues and hired new managers with backgrounds in restaurant management. I know one of the centers around me has lost many bowlers between that and just lack of upkeep and so on.

In my opinion if you treat the league bowlers well they will return and try to bring others to the center, plus the ones that are serious about the sport will come in for practice or to just bowl. You bring in more people for league and they will start to use the snack bar or bar. But since when do people always do the things that make sense.

I think AMF ought to apply for a "bailout". They might need it with their mismanagement practices.

Isn't that how it is with any business?? You identify the clients and customers who you expect to bring you the most business...in the case of a bowling center, it's the league bowler. You do everything you can to keep those customers happy, because they will (and this is the important part) KEEP SPENDING MONEY. Yes, they will expect a little special treatment, because they are such a good customer. When it comes down to it, though, knocking a buck off a practice game for the league bowlers is a heck of a lot cheaper than installing black lights or whatever other gimmick you can come up with.

The center my league is at in an AMF center, and I can see exactly what you're talking about regarding the snack bar thing. The menu looks more like a Chili's than a bowling alley. However, the place is clean (first and most important thing, in my book...I don't care how well you take care of the lanes, if the place is filthy and smells bad, I'm not going there), the lanes are well maintained, and there are plenty of leagues to choose from, so I guess I'm lucky.

Tuba, I've mentioned this before. The new house near me has NO leagues, and is not even sanctioned as a house. It does have non-sanctioned Senior and Industrial leagues in the daytime. but, the nights are dedicated to Cosmic Bowling only. $25 per hour weekdays, and $40 from Fri to Sun.

They don't care about leagues when these open bowlers pay those rates. A house 1/3 filled brings in more money than a full league.

yes nailed it~!! AMF center. my wife works there and she keeps telling them that they're fixin to go under if they dont get the leagues back. from what i can tell the league i was in had 13 teams. now its down to 8. and lost 3 leagues in just one year. that was nearly 80 people i was told. the shift leader i talk to all the time said that they lost that many in the last year. the one thing i like about her is.. she is a bowler. has been for 30 years now and has seen what AMF is like. and dennis is right, they want that open rate vers. league pay. even she said that. i bowled there tonight. first time in a month and it was dead. i was the only one there for an hour and then 3 people showed up till i left which was 15 mins till closing. i was there for 3 hours and no one besides me and the 3 people came in. 10$ for 3 hours anit bad really. plus they had some lanes that hadn't been used so i got one which was bad either. but yeah AMF sucks but its the only one till huntsville which is an hour away

plus they do push the snack bar sales way to much.

Plus a lot of managers are NOT bowlers. So they do not have the mantality of a league bowler, never had and never will.

On the other hand, Brian, its true. League bowlers are hard to please. Here's an example. Walk into my center on Friday and our beloved manager is installing (himself) TVs by the control desk. I told him it was darn nice of him to make sure his desk people didn't get bored by giving them TVs. He smiled and agreed then told me he had one team on one league on Monday that was going to quit if they didn't get to watch Monday Night Football. And an entire league that was ticked off because they were supposed to bowl at 9pm on Thurs., but never got on their lanes on time due to the 6:30 league lingering in the bar to watch whatever sporting game was on. So he's installing TVs to try to appease everyone. This is a privately owned center, so no corporate c rap to go through. If he thinks something is going to help continue business he just does it.

AMF (5 centers in our assoc) is loosing business here. They apparently had orders to raise lineage this season, which doesn't bother me. But they've lost bowlers over about .25/game. I don't get it but they have. Everything has gone up this year, why not lineage? Anyway, the two privately owned centers I bowl in have not raised their lineage (probably because they know they AMF centers did) and they've picked up leagues from those AMF centers. Entire leagues have left over .25/game hike. Plus we have a new center opening up at the end of the month and two of the AMF houses in that area have leagues planning on leaving even though they know the new fascility will be more expensive then AMF. Go figure. I can't fault the managers sometimes, its hard to understand league bowlers and what they want.

Erin