Is bowling becoming or has it become a rich mans sport?!?

[TMK]

Like you say LK.."so what now"
The answer ,like always, is very simple,in fact its covered in one word...
Sponsorship.
So the answer is simple..but getting sponsorship is another ball game.
Centre....sponsor...bowler, is the ideal trilogy.
Check your league out and tell me if it has a strong sponsor/sponsor at all.I bet 9.5 out of 10 leagues dont have a sponsor,and you are playing for each others money.
The missing link is "sponsors"
Its not reinventing the wheel,its basic.
As i see it,sponsorship has dropped into the "too hard basket"..its so easy to refer to all the lost sponsorships we read/see/hear about in the media,and get brainwashed into a mindset that says,dont even try,..its too hard.
Come t,ment time,there is a bit of a flurry,and you may get the lane awards sponsored,but in most cases,thats where the effort ends..ie once a year.
The worst part is that the sponsor really gets nothing back out of it except a tax deduction...certainly not new business.
So why sponsor.
Herein lies the problem..if you have a centre manager earning crap money,as they all do,you end up getting what you pay for..more crap.
For $15,000-$20,000 more pay per annum,you can attract highly skilled Marketing/Managerial skilled people..that can bring in $150,000--$200,000 extra sponsors/new business.
Bowling is expensive because there is no middle man..(sponsor)..its Centre...bowler..and that we all realise just aint working out.
Want to get the ball rolling...next time you go in for your regular league nite..ask the centre manager/asst.mngr..how many sponsors did they speak too/see since last week..and if they say "nil",just laugh and walk away..till they get the message .
Because until centres can attract more business via full leagues,...t,ment,serious,aspiring bowlers,aint got a chance unless they are prepared to pay through the nose.
How to attract sponsors...well thats another topic on its own.

 

[GeorgeF]

Whilst I agree with what most of the people have said, there is one component which people are over looking... ADVERTISING

Gone are the days when you could open a bowl and have thousands of people stampeding you for a lane. The general public don't want to go to a bowling alley, they want to a go to an entertainment complex.

AMF's TV advertising campaign was the first in a while last summer and was very successful. Linage went up and it gave them and other centres a good shot in the arm, but what now???

As with any business it is vitally important to keeps ones name out in the marketplace, come up with new ideas and gimmicks and promote themselves as the leading entertainment venue around. Do you think McDonalds or Coke need to advertise??? No, but they do on a daily basis because it gives them top of mind awareness and keeps a strong presence in a competitive marketplace. Bowling on principle is no different, the centres compete with the movies, skating rinks, you name it!

I think AMF and Goldpin had the right idea when they pooled there money together and purchased National Advertising on a large scale. It's too much for centres to fork it out themselves but if they work together the costs comes down and they all benefit. The social will go up and then it's up to the centres to attract the new bowler and get them in a league.

As for the orginal question, is it a rich mans sport?? I don't think so, it's not the cheapest around but definetly not the dearest!

 

[Michael Little]

As Tom stated in a previous post, you will find independant centres will tend to look after the up and coming bowler or intermediate to higher level bowler than the AMFs of the world. They usually can bend more on pricing than AMF can with their fairly strict budgets and pricing policies. They usually have lower rates and loyalty programs to encourage you to bowl more at a lower rate. Perhaps Kelpie you can go to your local centre or find one close that is independantly run and find out what they can offer you. As an example, my old home centre of Caboolture offered those league bowlers who had played league there for 10 years or more free practice, or they charged by the half hour or hour (you can fit about 5-6 games in a hour) or since purchasing a Kegle machine offer specific conditions to practice on at a price for the hour. I have noticed myself since moving to Newcastle and now paying 3.30 a game which is the cheapest rate available that I dont practice anymore. I play a little instructomat and just bowl league. If a centre doesnt exist near you, talk to the centre manager and you might be able to work out a fee for the year as you suggested. A friend used to do this in his centre where he would pay so much for the year say 500 and he would get 250 games practice. The high practice costs are basically why I rarely practice anymore unless there is a major tournament looming. Taking last years expenses into account between myself and Amanda, they would run close to if not above 10-12000. That is a lot of money to be paying out! That includes leagues, tournament entries and expenses whilst at tournaments. We are fortunate to be in a position to have equipment sponsored otherwise those cost would have another 5000 added on.

 

[TMK]

Glad you raised the point about advertising George,because most centres have become Numb nuts.
If you look through the forum,just about every centre,lane condition,bowling equipment,bowler,has been bagged.
This topic is "positive"..how do we get bowling on the map,how can we get centres to make profits,so that they can ALL look after the aspiring ones.Ones that will get their name in the media..further promoting the game with Gold medals,and World c,ships.
Like I said above,sponsorship hardly exists nowadays.
Goldpin (private enterprise)got real value through the Coca cola alliance.National coverage.
Look at all the adds nowadays.Centres are promoting themselves,ie no sponsors.
How many suppliers call on bowling centres on a regular basis.
The cafeteria,games rooms,would head the list.
Thats external business coming to your doors,making a profit,and how many of them are "Sponsors"..10%,20%,30%..?????..want modern up to date talk..then lets call a program revisiting these suppliers as..a "profit share" sponsorship arrangement.
Be a sponsor or we dont take your product.
As if the list of competitors in soft drinks,foods,etc aint fierce out there.
Bowling centres are modern "Venues" bigger ones with Function rooms,most without,but able to handle Sales meetings,conventions,celebrations,etc.....corporate stuff.
Sales managers tear their hair out each month trying to find a "different"type of venue to hold sales meetings in..then there are Operation mngrs,Dept.heads,etc,etc,etc.

Lets face it,how basic is getting sponsorship to promote a sport/recreation..then when you get a sponsor..as George said..you get into a REAL advertising program..one that can run not only during school holidays,but hammering it regularly.If not one sponsor..a stack of others combined.
But then this is where the TBL should be progressing..National sponsorships with National companies that supply goodies to most centres Nationally everyday.
How many centres send around questionares to bowlers,then analyse the responses,and actually do something about it.
There are 1000,s of self employed,small business people who play leagues..do centres come up with marketing plans to delve into these opportunities..already on their stats..
You,d never employ a bowling centre manager to be a gold miner would you.
You get what you pay for.
Why am i saying all this,because bowling has lost the plot,...certainly from the cost and value point of view,and it shouldnt,the answer is there at their front door step.
In the meantime,the loyal get hammered.

Most people know what to do.........only a few do what they know.
So whats new.

 

[Heather Spencer]

Hi Tom

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but it was so noticeable to myself when Cara did adverts on television for school holidays to promote kids going down to their local for a few games, that it never ever came up on screen who Cara was and what she had achieved. If we see Ian Thorpe, Kieren Perkins, Susie O'Neil to name a few, although we know who they are, their name always appears along with the ad. I believe to promote bowling as Cara obviously did, it would have been so nice to see her name so people could see she was an Aussie who had achieved so much in the sport.

In fact, one guy I work with and who had met my daughter Jo, asked me if that was Jo doing the advertising - LOL. I told him "No, it was Cara Honeychurch", his reply "Who is she, and why is she so special".

Most bowlers have "Heard Of" Cara, but a lot don't realise what she has achieved. Most bowlers aren't even bothered what anyone has achieved, by that I mean, your normal "run of the mill" bowler, so charity begins at home,. we should be promoting the sport within the bowlers, and then hopefully this will result in them popping along to tournaments to see the top bowlers in action. I am always trying to get people interested in seeing the "real thing in action", but mostly it falls on deaf ears, they are just plain not interested, however, had Cara's name appeared on the ads on telly, then maybe some at least would have been keen enough to go to the Women's Adelaide Cup just to see her bowl. In fact, I'm sure they would. You imagine if Ian Thorpe was swimming at the local pool, bet people would flock there just to say they have seen him in person and bowling should be no different. First and foremost we have to make people aware that bowling is a sport and not just a recreation. True it can be both and that's fine, but we have to begin by maybe promoting the people in the sport rather than the sport itself. I know what I mean, and hope you can understand where I am coming from????

Nuff said from a mere ordinary average bowler, but a bowler who is in tune with the importance of getting this sport really and truly on the road to being recognised by everyone. this has really gone off the track of "Is bowling too expensive", but somehow, one subject leads to another before we know it.

As for bowling, I do my bit at promoting the sport at work and when the opportunity arises, I talk with the centres to get cheaper games for the people who live at the home where I work. I know how expensive social bowling is, so I try to give the local bowling centre the business providing they can come up with a fair deal for us.

It would also help if the bowling centres got their bums into gear and made sure the equipment is working before a league, an example of this is that tonight, many times on the lanes we were bowling on, the second shot of the frame was showing when in fact the bowler hadn't even taken their first shot and unless you were totally observant, the bowler who was up would just bowl, which meant having to keep getting the remaining pins respotted for the second shot for spare. Also, the same pair of lanes, a bowler (myself included) was up on the lane to take the first shot of the frame, and the sweeper bar would come down, and reset the frame to the second shot, resulting in some bowlers taking their first shot, the sweeper bar came down, so the ball hit that instead, thus meaning they had to take the shot again with maybe not as good a result. If the centres want to make money then they have to look after those who bowl there regularly.

I'm sorry, I always write a lot, but that's me. So be it. Hope everyone who reads this understands what I am getting at.

Heather S.

 

[Heather Spencer]

Sorry, what I was getting at in my last post was that if people like Cara who does the advertising on telly are recognised, then maybe sponsorship would be easier. Advertise the name of the person doing the ad, what they have achieved and sponsors would recognise this maybe. Women's Adelaide Cup would have been a prime example, and more sponsors are needed for tournies like this as with every tournie whether it be male or female or both, and if sponsors were found, then there could be telly advertising - wonder if this would help our top bowlers financially to be able to cut their costs down, but also helping the bowling centres, because, the more spectators you get, the more coffees they will sell at the snack bars etc. etc.????

It isn't just the bowlers, it is the centres, and hopefully the sponsors who would ultimately benefit, can't go wrong.

Heather S.

Still what would I know ??

 

[nicola]

sometimes you go to a centre and you really have to wonder what is going on. i worked for amf for nearly 10 years and it is true that the young and casuals do take most of the shifts on the weekends which is prime time business hours for bowling. i used to work and bowl in the same centre, had no poroblems with that, i was also a sec/tres of a league bowling on friday nights. i had reduced my committments to the centre to only sat am with the jnrs and gradually i became less familiar with the staff on a friday night. when i paid my league monies i would have to wait on the edge of the counter, surrounded by hords of social bowlers, to pay. when i questioned why everyone else was being served before me i was more or less told that it was more important to get them on the lanes than it was to take my league money! i was dumbfounded at this and consequently at the end of that season i resigned my position within the league and also with the juniors. this happened a long time ago but just last friday night we were at the bowl (not the same one) for coaching. the lanes had been booked, paul had bowled one game and the centre manager comes down and tells us that the lanes are needed for league and if we want to continue bowling we would have to wait one hour until another lane is available. we were paying customers, they do not have instructomat at this centre, and we were told to leave. this is still evidence of how some centres put the once a week social bowler in front of their every day bread and butter league bowler.
i now bowl at salisbury and the conditions or colour scheme may not be the best but staff are friendly, call everyone by name, and every league bowler is entitled to 2 free games a day if you start them before 6pm. not bad for pre league practice. our 3 games costs us 15.00. we used to be a very strong 24 lane league with two divisions (2000) but now we are down to only 12 teams still two divisions, we used to have a ruling of at least one member of the opposite sex must bowl in the team but that has been removed to encourage more teams to be filled.

shane and i used to manage gambier lanes in mount gambier and we used to struggle to compete against other pursuits ie movies, go-karting, other sports and the hotel you would find on every corner (theres not much else to do in the mount!!) we introduced an incentive scheme for our leagues that gave all bowlers a free week of bowling per season if the league only scheduled 6 weeks per year off as the trend had been to only bowl between feb and nov. this worked really well, each team had a free week in rotation and it not only improved our league numbers slightly but also kept our league income static for the majority of the year. this may be worth a try if you are in a struggling league and the centre is willing to work with you.
like tom said if you can find a good centre then support it, and they will do like wise in supporting you.

 

[Heather Spencer]

Hi Nic

Some might think that as your Mum we could easily phone each other on this topic, but there again, they don't know how hard it is to catch each other on the phone because of my funny working hours. I am only up this late tonight because I don't have to work till tomorrow arvo.

Anyway, as you said, to make bowling more attractive, the centres have to look after the "real bowlers", those who bowl regularly like you and me, and it doesn't matter what average we are, the bottom line is, we are regular bowlers, who enjoy the sport and who try to promote it when we can.

When you worked for AMF many years ago, I remember it was because you were at Uni and needed a bit of pocket money, but I don't recall you getting too many "fringe benefits" from that. The best way to promote our sport so that we can get interested sponsors is by promoting the "top bowlers" first and foremost. As I said in my last posts, I am sure that had it been indicated on Cara's telly ads, that she was our top bowler etc. etc., her name would have become a household name just like our swimmers, athletic people such as Cathy Freeman etc. Sure bowling aint gonna be a high profile sport, but a little foresight in the advertisers (AMF in this instance)eyes by stating who Cara was in the ads, would have gone a long way.

I am no swimmer or golfer etc., Can you imagine it, I would sink rather than swim, and playing golf, well I'll leave that to your imagination, but we all recognise the names of the top people in those given sports, and why??? Because they give them publicity and keep reminding us what they have achieved. I only single out Cara because she did the telly adverts, but what a great pity it is that other top bowlers aren't recognised by the general public. If we see a name often enough on telly adverts, people will gradually recognise that person's name, and then if tournaments are advertised on television, stating that the person concerned - i.e. Cara will be bowling, maybe a few more league bowlers will turn up to see just how good bowling can really be. There are far too many people who like myself bowl in a league once a week, think they are great with their 160+ averages, but really know little about the higher profile bowlers. They complain about the cost bowling incurs, but really have no idea of the real cost for a high profile bowler to be really competitive. Michael Little got it right when he said that for him and Amanda it costs around $12,000 a year, and that is ridiculous for 2 top bowlers to have to find that sort of money alone. Nic, you and I both know the importance of being at the top of bowling, but at a high price. I wouldn't even know where to start with sponsorship, but I do believe that by promoting the top bowlers first then bowling in general will be the winner.

Love you as a daughter and friend, and I might not know it all, but I would dearly love to see our sport being more recognised by the general public as a sport and not just something you do to pass a couple of hours on a sunday arvo. Again maybe the cost does come into it.

Hope you agree with me. Catch yer soon.

Mum

Heather S

 

[left kelpie]

Interesting reading from all. Thank you.

I guess that this debate/forum could go on for a while,so in the meantime ill let my feet do the talking,as I have heard there is a new centre opening sometime this year around the Cranbourne area, is this true and is it privately run ( I hope)??
Thought I could give it a go perhaps, see what they can offer!!

See ya LK

Additional-- Just curious whether the big wigs of corporate AMf ever read any of these forums,and also if they take any notice. Or is it a case of "u wanna bowl then youre sure as **** gonna pay for it" mind set with them??!!??!

 

[Graham]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, ">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by left kelpie:
Additional-- Just curious whether the big wigs of corporate AMf ever read any of these forums,and also if they take any notice.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know for a fact that Peter Finlayson (CEO), Warren Stewart and I believe Tony Goodwin stick their heads in and have a look every now and then. Whether they take any notice - well you would have to ask them that question.

 

[spotty34_mac]

I started bowling 3 years ago and loved it from the start so I joined up with not 1 but 3 leagues.

The costs of the leagues PLUS practice bowling PLUS gear PLUS competition fees soon rounded out to about $100 a week.

Add the fact that my other half also bowls league & competition, and 3 children who enjoy it too and we have something that is comparable to a small mortgage payment going out in bowling expenses each month!

I also agree that you don't get value for money when you turn up and play on lanes that haven't been properly prepared - especially if you have booked them for a pre-bowl. You don't get "league conditions" or a fair go at bowling a decent game.

I was in the USA recently, and the bowling centres there are huge, very busy, and much cheaper by comparison. "Off Peak" times you can usually get US$1 games, and the leagues there fill the centres. Everybody bowls - without breaking the bank.

I can understand social bowlers not taking up the sport here - a family of 4 needing shoes and 2 games of bowling costs over $60 - for less than 1 hour of fun.

A "social" day out for us costs $50 (3 games each @ discounted league rates) - much better value but still very expensive.

I love love the sport but often threaten to give it up every month when I try to balance the budget.

Maybe we should all become shareholders - and then we could claim a tax deduction for "inspecting" the value of our investment???

 

[zsarchie1]

My sibling bowls and although i dont count the dollars,it costn me $2000.00 ayr to pay for her leage bowling never mind the driving to and from tournies,the cost of tournies the drinks ect.
But im proud of the fact that my sibling is up there with the best of the juniors bowlers.
So as long as you can see something happeningand the sibling strives for the next step in the ladder,it is a great sport.
Any way if you dont spend your money on something the tax department will make sure they grab it.
had to say something

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