It’s Time to Rock ‘n’ Bowl
With only three days left until she tied the knot, Jane Edith Wilson was going to have one last wild night as a single woman. The Conga Room? A male strip show? Nope. Wilson, a 36-year-old Los Angeles actress-comedian spent her waning minutes as an unattached woman gripping a large neon ball and bowling with seven friends.
On a recent night at Jillian’s Hi-Life Lanes in Universal City--a cross between a retro bowling alley and ritzy bar--the bachelorette party was well underway. ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” was blasting through the loudspeakers as the video played along on a large screen above the lanes. Half a dozen television sets, each with different programming, were also vying for attention, along with the unusual lighting, the leather booths and the wood-trimmed furnishings.
Move over, Ralph Kramden. Scram, Archie Bunker. And don’t even think about it, Al Bundy. The days of beer-bellied, chain-smokin’ bowlers are gone. The ancient game is in the midst of a renaissance that encompasses the world of fashion, sports and entertainment. A younger, more upscale crowd is putting the lie to the down-market stereotypes of bowlers past. Evidence of bowling’s newfound hipness abounds:
* Ritzy specialty stores are selling expensive two-toned “bowling” shoes and purses shaped like bowling bags.
* A popular television show is largely set in a bowling alley.
* Mattel Inc. has created a Bowling Champ Barbie.
* Many Hollywood hipsters are quietly working on their bowling averages. Alley managers in Los Angeles say Matt Damon, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Drew Carey, David Duchovny and even Rosie O’Donnell are enthusiasts. They roll to celebrate Oscar wins, birthdays or wrap parties. They’ve been known to bowl at the Sports Center Bowl in Studio City, Bay Shore Bowl in Santa Monica, Hollywood Star Lanes in Hollywood and Mar Vista Bowl in Los Angeles.
* A real-life cyber guy is trying to revive professional bowling.
Bowling’s new popularity is no accident. As the number of league bowlers declined from a peak of 8 million in the 1980s, bowling proprietors began to market the sport aggressively to a younger crowd.
Last year, almost 54 million Americans 6 and older bowled at least once, making bowling the top participation sport in the country. That is a 2.4% increase from 1999 and a 6.4% increase from the past two years, according to a study conducted by American Sports Data, which monitors more than 100 recreational and sports activities ranging from fly fishing to cardio-kickboxing. Bowling, says Mike May, a spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Assn., is “more than holding its own.”
The ultimate avatars of what’s cool--teenagers--are returning to bowling centers in droves on weekends, lured by music (sometimes played live) and a chance to hang out with friends. In the midst of spinning strobe lights and fog, they are bowling into the early morning hours in a nightclub-type atmosphere that is referred to as Cosmic Bowling or Rock ‘n’ Bowl.
Bowling has even caught the eye of the fashionistas. Designer names such as Prada, Kenneth Cole and DKNY offer bowling-inspired street shoes ranging in color from peacock blue with a metallic sheen to green and red combinations with retro lace-up fronts. The cost can range as high as $300 per pair. The fashion world’s latest trend has even inspired a mini-crime wave. Bowling alley proprietors have reported customers are stealing their used rental shoes.
At Mar Vista Lanes, assistant manager Robert Mosley admitted he was at a loss to explain why patrons walk off with basic black, red and white bowling shoes, which rent for about $2.75. “I have no clue, to be truthful,” Mosley said. “Who would actually want to wear someone else’s shoes?” Many bowling centers now require customers to leave one of their own shoes behind as collateral.
Television has also climbed on the bowling bandwagon. “Ed,” which premiered on NBC last fall, is about a New York lawyer who returns to his Ohio hometown of Stuckeyville and buys the bowling alley. Needless to say, the show features characters who are beautiful, pimple-free and squeaky clean--another boost for bowling. “If you put handsome people in bowling shirts, I’m sure that helps,” jokes the show’s co-creator and executive producer Rob Burnett.
Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University and past president of the Pop Culture Assn., said the popularity of “Ed” proves bowling has been resurrected from its heyday in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
“When all is said and done, it is so incredibly versatile,” Thompson said. “It’s a dance, it’s a sport, it’s a bar, it’s a pickup place and even something you can do with your family. And now, of course, ‘Ed’ has elevated it to classy kitsch culture. ‘Ed’ is doing wonders for the respectability of bowling.”
Taking a shot at bowling’s new popularity will be Comedy Central’s “Let’s Bowl” premiering in August. The show is being touted as “The People’s Court” meets “Bowling for Dollars,” in which two bowlers will compete for goofy prizes. The show will also include bowling-themed comedy sketches.
Putting Shine Back on the Sport
Bowling alley proprietors haven’t seen this kind of free publicity since the 1960s, when Fred Flintstone first began hurling boulders at the prehistoric Bedrock Bowl. And that makes Chris Peters happy.
Several years ago, Peters, a 42-year-old former top executive at Microsoft and one of its original employees, was busy inventing software like Excel. Then he quit and decided to take up a hobby. He figured bowling, his father’s sport, was more genuine than golf. “It is more down to earth, I think,” Peters said from the 28th floor of the Professional Bowlers Assn. headquarters in Seattle. “When you say, ‘Who are bowlers?’ you are really talking about Americans.”
But it wasn’t altruism that prompted him and two partners to buy the association for $5 million. “We think we can turn it around and turn it into a viable sports franchise,” said Peters, who has a well-known inability to get past a 165 average. “We have the goal of turning this into the equivalent of a major league sports team.”
To that end, Peters knows he’ll have to find a way to make kids dream of becoming pro bowlers. One way, he says, is to increase prizes for professional bowling tournaments, which are pitifully low compared with what golfers can earn, and certainly compared with what basketball players get paid.
Peters wants to create a bowling season, with summers off, and is in discussions with ESPN, where bowling tournaments are aired sporadically, to get more consistent coverage. He also wants to promote the image of professional bowlers as young, well-toned athletes, rather than the “old, fat guy” stereotype.
The association, Peters says, wants to raise the profile of the players and make “heroes” out of them. One such poster boy is 31-year-old Chris Barnes of Wichita, Kan., who was named 1998 Professional Bowling Assn. Rookie of the Year.
David Carter, a principal with the Sports Business Group, a sports marketing firm, says Peters and his partners may ultimately change the way people look at the sport, with consumers bypassing the movies for a night of bowling. “[They’re] really talking about a rebirth or a repositioning of the sport,” Carter says.
In a snack bar tucked away in the corner of Rossmoor Bowl in Seal Beach, a well-toned 19-year-old named Scott Norton definitely goes against the old bowling stereotype. The handsome teen dreams of making a living competing as a professional bowler. Already, Norton has won the National Amateur Bowling championship administered by USA Bowling. He bowls for Team USA, and has competed in such locales as the Dominican Republic, Britain and Cancun, Mexico. This year, the Cal State Fullerton freshman, who is rolling 240s (a perfect score is 300), will represent the U.S. in Thailand, South Africa and Argentina as the country’s No. 1 league bowler.
After 18 wins in tournaments all over the world, Norton says he has racked up more than $30,000 in college money. “A long time ago, you paid your money [to bowl] and didn’t get anything out of it,” Norton said. “Now, that $5,000 that you got from bowling will pay for two years of college.”
Varsity bowling teams are sprouting up in middle schools, high schools and colleges around the country. With $5 million in scholarship funds available from bowling associations for college-bound bowlers, some kids, as young as 5 years old, are earning cash for school through youth leagues or tournament competitions.
Still, skeptics wonder if bowling will ever permanently transcend its working-class roots. “It’s a blue-collar Midwestern sport that’s trying to have some play on the national level,” says Tim Staples, a Dallas sports marketing consultant. “It’s got a long way to go.”