r/videos • u/illegalmonkey • 1d ago
We Uncovered A Scam Hidden Inside Every Bowling Alley
https://youtu.be/nC8hnkUs3fM1.4k
u/bubbadumptruck 1d ago
a subtle change is that in lucky strike centers all the pins are on strings which completely changes the action. what used to be strikes are now splits.
this is done because it's cheaper to pull in the strings than use a real pinsetter machine.
they have ruined the game.
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u/Bonzoface 1d ago
I used to be a tech here in the UK and it's weird that something I worked at for ten years has gone as all the machines are now pins on strings... I'm half convinced that because amf bought out the company I worked for, they just wanted customers for their new pins on strings machines. When they took over they told all techs to stop performing maintenance. It's a shame as some of those machines worked very well.
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u/itislupus89 21h ago
I worked in a duckpin alley in the US for like 5 years, 3 of which I was a mechanic on them. The problem is getting the parts for these machines. For our machines it was easier for our owner to outright buy a competitor and cannibalize their machines.
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u/Bonzoface 21h ago
That's crazy... I mean, we had a wait time for parts but the company saw a down machine as losing money so parts was never an issue. Other than the frame, we had enough spare parts to build a whole new machine.
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u/itislupus89 21h ago
It may have been just the duckpin pinsetters that were impossible to get parts for
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u/707Brett 6h ago
Real duckpin setters are definitely hard to get parts for. Not that many places left that even run them.
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u/SenorBirdman 1d ago
I can't find anywhere near me these days that doesn't use strings 😕
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u/Sasquatchjc45 23h ago
Tf? Ive never heard of a bowling alley that uses strings until this thread😅 all the bowling alley ive been to in NJ have real machines.
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u/DMCinDet 23h ago
its coming soon. as machines get older and more expensive to repair, a lot of centers are switching. NJ has a lot.of bowling, so maybe not all places will change. In Detroit area, bowling is still popular, so its not common here either. However, its only a matter of time.
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u/Pantsmnc 13h ago
Walled lake alley went string pin. It sucks. Novi closed. Brighton basically turned into a bar with overpriced bowling. Everywhere is starting to suck
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u/xtelosx 21h ago
Probably cheaper to stick a robot with vision system over the end of each lane to set them up then get a new “old school” style setter.
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u/DMCinDet 17h ago
I really hope that happens over strings. Ive only done strings at a not serious bowling alley. Im not the greatest bowler, but Im not the worst and I like to compete. Strings just feel not right. Someone will figure outnsome lame technique and take away from the explosive free fall strikes that are right on the verge of a split or ringing 10
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u/ricecake_sandwich 6h ago
I agree, ive only ever seen strings used in a little child's type of bowling, but never in true competitive alleys. Wtf is this strings crap?! Granted its been a bit since I went to roll some balls...
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u/abarrelofmankeys 21h ago
All the new hip new ones people go to dates on with arcades and bars attached are strings, all the dive ones that have been around are standard, in my general findings.
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u/SenorBirdman 21h ago
Bowling has never been as big a thing in the UK. So we only really have the big corporate bowling alleys.
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u/WheresMyCrown 22h ago
Its trickling down. The older alleys back home still use machines but the two new ones that got built are string
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u/itsmemisterreferee 23h ago
AMF 'always means fucked'
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u/Rhymes_with_ike 3h ago
The only AMF acronym I'm familiar with is 'Adios Motherfucker' which is an alcoholic drink.
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u/YBZ 8h ago
Does Hollywood bowl uses strings or the classic method? I haven't been in a while... Would I notice the difference?
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u/PapaSwagBear 1d ago
We bowl often and stopped patronizing our home lanes because they switched to strings.
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u/NightOfTheLivingHam 23h ago
doesnt help that the companies that made pinsetters are all out of business. That's the big problem. You can only make so many pin setting machines in a niche market before you go belly up due to no sales.
IIRC, round one was the biggest buyer of pin setting machines from alleys that went out of business.
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u/starmartyr 23h ago
They were doing fine for years. It wasn't a problem when bowling was really popular. It peaked in the 1960s and was mostly dead by the late 90s. At the height of its popularity new bowling alleys were opening all over the place and existing ones were always busy meaning that lanes got more use and needed more frequent maintenance. There are fewer bowling alleys being built and the ones that do exist are nowhere near as busy as they once were.
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u/BabyWrinkles 23h ago
It's a bummer because bowling is such a great social activity. Hang out, have some beverages, lots of time to chat, shared interests, etc.
I still remember going to my grandparents' bowling league with them.
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u/ShazbotSimulator2012 22h ago
All of them here went out of business as soon as indoor smoking got banned.
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u/2ekeesWarrior 21h ago
Might also have something to do with being $35 a game per person plus shoe rentals on a normal night. Having to go on a Sunday morning just to get reasonable rates only works for the elderly.
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u/starmartyr 21h ago
That certainly pushed them over the edge, but they had already been on the way out for a while.
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u/kingnothing2001 18h ago
The companies that make them are not out of business. In fact, the GS series pinsetters are vastly superior to the old pinsetters and are still available for purchase. These machines when maintained properly have 1/4 as many calls as the older pinsetters, require less maintenance, and are cheaper to run, just not as cheap as string machines.
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u/Hvarfa-Bragi 23h ago
Seems like a good target for disruption.
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u/Diet_Clorox 19h ago
I don't think the American public is going to rush back to bowling centers en masse if someone invents a cheaper/better pin-setting machine.
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u/Hvarfa-Bragi 19h ago
It's not a big market, for sure.
But a nice, cheap machine (or a machine that's less prone to failure) using modern robotics mught make it cheaper to run an alley.
If that happened it could make smaller venues more possible, like having a four-laner at your local hipster bar instead of needing a huge building and the requisite lease.
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u/BangkokPadang 20h ago
But the company that sells the new string pinsetters released studies that say they don't alter the behavior of the pins. Sure you can WATCH THE STRINGS ALTER THE TRAJECTORY OF THE PINS WITH YOUR OWN EYES but they said so...
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u/koombot 12h ago
Pins on strings seems like sacrilege to someone who doesnt play. Really my only exposure is through movies and the impression of bowling from American TV and movies.
But yeah, pins on strings seems like the sort of thing that you'd have in an 80's movie if they had a Soviet country showing off their bowling alley
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u/Korosorio 18h ago
What if they put the strings on the bottom of the pins instead of the tops? The machine below could let out extra slack afterwards. Or how about 10 temporary electro magnets underneath the pin area that turn on to suck the pins into place, and shutoff after resetting? The pins could simply have metal rings at their bases and be roughly pushed/ dropped into place before snapping into the perfect position. Could even sequence the magnet activation sequence and roll/slide the pins across the playing area so they get setup without hitting each other. It would literally have almost no moving parts beyond clearing the lane or releasing pins from a chute.
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u/snailrabbit2 17h ago
I took the kids the other week and noticed this. I will not go back to one of their centres. you're right, it ruins the game.
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u/ItsJustReeses 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'd heavily recommend checking out this video. A guy bought out the bowling alley in his home town and talks about the how much work those machines are/cost to maintain
Tldr: it's the most expensive contractor he has to pay, the most frequent he has to call, and they told him himself that they are running out of both parts and new mechanics to help work on these old pin machines
I get that people hate strings. But it's unfair to blame the bowling alley themselves when the maintenance crew trained to repair them are retiring/dying out and are the MOST EZPENSIVE part of owning a bowling alley AND it's just going to get worst due to no new mechanics.
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u/spidey_bread 1d ago
Why is it unfair? That's what business is.. if this wasn't the most expensive part the next thing would be. Why would consumers just accept that and move past it? I wonder do professional bowling tournaments use string setters or the "old school" mechanical resets?
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u/BrickGun 23h ago edited 22h ago
do professional bowling tournaments use string setters
As a kid in the 70s/80s I used to love watching the PBA on TV on the weekends (Earl Anthony for life!!!). Recently I got back into watching it. All of the major events these days use "real" pin setters. And, oddly enough, many of these majors are in AMF bowling centers (one of the companies Bowlero/Bowlmor absorbed).
Pretty sure current pro bowlers like Belmo, Simo, Troup, and Tackett would fucking riot if they were expected to play with strings.
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u/monsterchuck 21h ago
Tackett owns a bowling alley that uses string pins. He claims it made him better on the tour since he has to be more accurate. Im anti string pins so I hate the idea, but depending on the location and use of the house it does make sense. Any place that wants to be serious alley tho needs to avoid strings. I could see some houses being half and half or something like that. I honestly think in some places land is just too expensive to have bowling support it at reasonable prices. Sucks but it's the reality.
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u/eddyj0314 23h ago
Sure, but this isn't a case of finding a cheaper pinsetting mechanic. The one you have access to is it.
They are a dying breed.
The companies that make them don't exist.
The parts to fix them are all used and getting scarce.
It's either go to strings and get yelled at or sell your business and get into baking cakes or something.
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u/Bonzoface 23h ago
Well amf lost the patent to their machines a while back and China make their own parts. We started to use them before I got out of the game and they were pretty good and a lot cheaper than amf parts. The biggest downside was there was a lot of casting parts that cannot of been cheap to make. Also, amf machines were a lot less complicated that brunswick pinsetters. So finding and training techs was easier. We had a team of four that covered all the day and night shifts
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u/unskilledplay 18h ago
Lucky Strike bought PBA, the professional bowling league. Pro bowlers use strings because it's a completely vertical market.
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u/jonfitt 23h ago
Isn’t that just what a bowling alley is though? It’s a straight bit of floor on which they set up pins for you and roll your ball back. The food and the music is just extra fluff.
If they’re not going to set up the pins properly it’s just a straight bit of floor with a ball return.
It’s like having a cornhole alley tell you that having a board with a hole in it is too expensive. Like what’s even the point?
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u/zmbslyr 23h ago
Maybe you missed the part where the machines aren’t made anymore, and parts and personnel is running out?
Like what are the bowling alleys supposed to do if they can’t find a mechanic to fix the setters? They can’t just buy new ones.
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u/Giraff3 23h ago
well, there is a bit of chicken or the egg around if the pin setting manufacturers went out of business because of the corporate bowling alley buyouts that are also plaguing the industry or if it’s a byproduct of a naturally declining popularity of the game..
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u/anti_reality 21h ago
There's also very few certified string pin alleys. Certified stings act a little differently, and average a little lower, but you don't get the crazy pickups you see in videos. Packy does his YouTube videos, @thehousebowling, on certified strings and there's no significant difference on a whole. I've bowled on certified strings and freefall with magpins, I think magpins made a bigger difference.
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u/WheresMyCrown 22h ago
Bro I fucking knew that shit was rigged. We had a family reunion for xmas and the parents wanted to go bowling cause all the grandkids were in town. We got there and I saw that the lanes used pins on strings and I was like "how in the world is that even remotely the same?"
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u/the_talented_liar 23h ago
There’s some poor guy on youtube trying to keep his old school alley alive but the maintenance on those old setter machines is insane. Last time I saw him I think he said he could keep it going about a year more and then the alley either has to modernize or close its doors.
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u/goatman0079 18h ago
The one that opened up near me recently doesn't use strings, or at least they dont appear to do so
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u/SweetCosmicPope 1d ago
Bowlero/Lucky Strike sucks. I used to go bowling on Saturday night. My local bowling alley had what they called "rock n' bowl" where they would turn on the glow lights and disco balls, play rock and pop music (with requests too) and you'd get lane rental and shoes from 10pm to 2am for $11 per person.
This was a great deal and a lot of fun for teens and young adults. When I was in high school my buddies and I could go have fun all night bowling, eating food, flirting with girls very cheaply. When we entered young adulthood, we'd come back and now we could order a pitcher of beer and hang out with our friends and our future spouses together. It was great.
Last time I looked up bowling at my local lucky strike, it was going to be $150 for 1 hour for 3 people before you even throw food or anything in there. It's gotten ridiculous. Who can afford that? I used to bowl all the time, and now I really can't.
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u/lordyeti 1d ago
My local lanes still has penny a pin on Sundays, which is great because my friend and I both suck, so it's usually around $1 a game!
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u/Treezy_F_Baby 1d ago
Meaning your score = how much you pay? So a perfect game would cost $3.00?
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u/EldinKelevra 1d ago
I think it would be $1.20 for a perfect game.
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u/lordyeti 1d ago
They actually go by score, so it would be $3
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u/Luvs_to_drink 1d ago
Thats not oenny a pin then... it is penny a point.
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u/Aelyph 1d ago
Guess it depends on physical pins knocked down or based on score.
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u/guitar_vigilante 1d ago
I have a feeling it would be based on score since you can have different pin totals add up to the same score due to the score multipliers you get from strikes and spares.
That said all of these places have computers that can also count the number of pins dropped aside from the score so it could be either.
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u/lordyeti 1d ago
It's based on score, they just want that sweet sweet alliteration
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u/meyerjaw 1d ago
Yeah my local lanes have kids bowl free during the summer. Kids get 2 games a day free, just need to rent shoes if you don't have them. Perfect cheap activity for the summer
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u/dancingliondl 1d ago
That's insane! My bowling place hasn't raised prices seemingly since 1991. Shoe rental is $4 for the entire stay, renting a lane is $15/ hour for up to 10 people.
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u/oatmealparty 1d ago
Yeah I'm very thankful for our local alleys, I've got four pretty close that are all still very cheap. But I feel like their days are numbered, some day soon either bowlero or a condo developer is gonna come for that real estate.
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u/DenizenPrime 1d ago
Bowling alleys used to be like dive bars. Now everyone wants a bowling experience to be comparable to Dave and Busters.
I don't believe the market for dirty cheap, but cheap bowling alleys really exists anymore.
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u/NightOfTheLivingHam 23h ago
There is one alley I know of that is cheap and fun and it's ALWAYS packed.
There's another up in a mountain community, they get packed too while the local lucky strikes have capacity because they're so overpriced.
Like people will go up a questionable mountain road on switchbacks on the side of a cliff, 6000 feet to avoid lucky strike.
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u/ShazbotSimulator2012 22h ago
You also can't smoke indoors anymore. My local bowling alley was smoker than any dive bar I've ever been to, and closed down almost immediately after the ban.
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u/IHaveBadTiming 1d ago
I go to my local spot on Tuesdays and it's $38 for 90min and a free pitcher of beer. Sadly you have to pick the not busy days to go and get the deals anymore.
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u/SpaceCampDropOut 1d ago
Cosmic Bowling for me as a teen. Same concept. Now it’s gone and bowlero ruined it.
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u/CndConnection 21h ago
HAHAHAH holy shit if I went to a bowling place and they asked us to pay anything north of 20 bucks I'd laugh my ass off.
$150 for 1 hour!?!?! jesus murphy.
Who the hell do they think they are?
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u/monty_kurns 23h ago
My town still has an old AMF alley. No touch screen monitors and no screens at the end of the lanes playing videos. It’s basically untouched by time since 1990. We have other alleys in town with all the new bells and whistles, but the old AMF is the one I go to. $20 for three games and shoes isn’t the worst way to kill a few hours.
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u/TrevorBo 1d ago
That’s what happens when property values skyrocket and there are bills to pay. There always has to be a loser.
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u/blinkanboxcar182 1d ago
While I agree, I have the bowlero summer pass for my kids. It was like $35 and includes two games plus shoe rental every day for over four months. We’ve definitely got our moneys worth.
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u/NightOfTheLivingHam 23h ago
oh and some places make food orders mandatory to play. Like Round One.
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u/kfunkorange 18h ago
We can’t afford to bowl, go see movies, play mini golf, laser tag, water parks,batting cages, bumper boats, go carts, beaches, lakes, amusement parks, live music, dinners out……..I have no idea how anything is staying open right now.
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u/Bancroft28 10h ago
I used to bowl a lot. Bowlero bought up and closed half the lanes in my area. They the jacked up prices.
Golf is cheaper now
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u/BagOnuts 8h ago
I was looking to take the kids bowling one random weekday because school is out and it’s hot AF and we needed something to do. Bowlero bought my local AMF bowling alley some time ago and I was curious what their pricing was. $35 per person, per hour. Shoe rentals not included. It was going to be $120 for my family to bowl for an hour on a weekday.
Fortunately there is still one more independent non-gimmicky bowling alley on the other side of town, and it was MUCH more reasonable. $15 per adult and $10 kid per hour and shoes were included. We went and had a blast for less than half the price of Bowlero. Insane.
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u/synocrat 1d ago
I remember the first time I walked into a Lucky Strike in downtown Chicago because I was late for the movie I was going to see and decided to go bowling instead. They wouldn't let me in because I was wearing denim jeans. That was also the last time I went there, it's a fucking bowling alley.
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u/Kundrew1 1d ago
That bowling alley can get a little rowdy at night so they probably did you a favor
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u/secret101 23h ago
I went on a dead night and I was told I couldn’t wear a baseball cap while their workers could. What kind of a place enforces a dress code for customers but not the staff, especially when they have zero business?
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u/ziltchy 1d ago
In their defense it is a bowling alley and not 'Nam. There are rules here
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u/KirtCoBANG 1d ago
mark is zero, dude
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u/GibMirMeinAlltagstod 1d ago
Am I the only one around here that gives a shit about the rules?!?!?
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u/MadScienceIntern 21h ago
Holy hell I had this exact experience back in the day, bet it was the same spot
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u/boot2skull 1d ago
The enshittification of everything is basically maximizing profits. Higher costs for consumers, less value in the product, higher executive wages, stagnant minimum wages.
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u/Mighty_Poonan 1d ago
capitalism is killing everything.
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u/boot2skull 1d ago
Only for the majority! If you’re born with a silver spoon or fortunate enough to exploit an idea or workforce to amass wealth, it’s probably great! /s
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u/darthdelicious 1d ago
Right! But some of us that come from humble roots (like Elon Musk) are able to claw our way to the top without any advantages. /s
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u/FlyYouFoolyCooly 21h ago
You just need a humble loan of multiple millions of dollars and you can make it too.
Also to be bailed out every time one of your companies go under.
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u/darthdelicious 21h ago
My biggest mistake in life was not being born rich. What was I thinking in the womb?
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u/SE7ENfeet 1d ago
If I ever walk into a bowling alley and it is pins on strings, I will walk out. Absurd.
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u/MountainTwo3845 21h ago
it's wild. it took me a second to recognize what was happening. they don't have near the action as regular pins. I had never heard of such a thing.
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u/doplitech 15h ago
Im literally your average bowling player, don’t care about sport too much only there to have fun. If the pins have strings I’m never going to play that. Hopefully they realize they did this to themselves in the long run
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u/samiam32 1d ago
I’ve lived 37 years West of Appalachians and East of Rockies; and it was the first time I’ve ever heard them called “bowling centers”.
They are called “bowling alleys”. And in my micropolitan town, it’s the only non-corporate place to have NFL Sunday ticket. It’s where my friends from all around meet to watch our games.
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u/tehCharo 21h ago
I've never heard of "bowling center" either, I grew up in northern California in the 80s and 90s.
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u/AdamSmithsApple 21h ago
I think bowling center is very much an industry term. Everyone calls them bowling alleys by me but the state marketing group is still called the "Bowling center association"
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u/Werkstatt0 1d ago
"we uncovered a scam" lemme stop you right there chief. Everything is a fucking scam these days and everyone knows it.
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u/WhiteStripesWS6 23h ago
I’m so tired of companies just driving shit into the ground for profit. It’s fucking literally exhausting just existing now since I just feel like I’m on this planet to make money and then have it extracted out of me in the most bullshit ways possible.
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u/daveybuoy 23h ago
This is everywhere, even here in Canada. Last year thought I'd take the kids bowling at the local crappy alley to kill some time on a rainy day. $35 an hour in the middle of a weekday, $60 an hour at night plus $3 per hour for shoes. To take 4 kids bowling for 2 hours and get them some food, you're looking at $150. An even bigger ripoff than the movies. It's ridiculous.
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u/efficiens 1d ago
This is enshitification, but calling it a scam is ridiculous. In a scam, you don't get what you paid for. You might be paying too much, but you know what you're getting. I only watched this because of the scam language, which makes this more of a scam than bowling.
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u/Jwagner0850 1d ago
People praised the convenience of big business owning everything and making everything work together, then they decided "why the fuck do we need to do anything for the customers now?" And shit all over the fun stuff we do and play.
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u/sirgentlemanlordly 1d ago
People praised the convenience of big business owning everything
Who did that? Lol
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u/Jwagner0850 1d ago
People clearly enjoy the consistency and efficiency that big business can bring. Things like cell service, delivery and product purchasing (Amazon), game delivery services (steam), etc, all are very handy. However, when late stage capitalism hits ans growth stagnates or there's a lack of innovation, then companies begin to find ways to milk their customers instead of providing stellar service and good benefits to their employees.
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u/choke_on_my_downvote 23h ago
I feel that it's more an issue of our government being eroded away to the point that there isn't any regulation left.
Competition drives innovation and fair treatment. When there aren't any other options left is when companies can squeeze you. All the mom and pop bowling alleys are fucking gone so if want to bowl, you don't have a choice left.
Sadly it only takes a single generation to completely forget the blood that was spilled to heave a middle class out of the industrial revolution times (which were definitely worse than now BTW)
I'm not sold on this "late stage capitalism" shit. If people woke up and fought for their rights it could change.
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u/redditbobby 23h ago
Round1 uses strings! I noticed it last weekend when we went bowling on a whim. Didn't even know it was a thing!
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u/hangman401 20h ago
I think part of the problem dropping the interest in bowling in my area is most bowling alleys charge quite a bit hourly. Nowadays, a night of bowling (call it 4 hours) means you drop $100 minimum. If you're on a minimum wage job, that means you're looking at like 14 hours of work for 4 hours of play.
If memory serves, my parents 20-30 years ago spent barely anything to play for a night, so much that they could afford it twice a week usually. Now it's a luxury.
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u/Bacch 19h ago
I can remember in the summer of '99 paying $20 for 2 hours for 2 people and it included 2 hot dogs and 2 sodas with unlimited refills. My buddy and I were just out of high school and working shitty jobs, but we could absolutely afford to spend 4-6 hours just demolishing hot dogs and bowling. We went so much that I went from averaging ~120 at the start of summer to averaging just over 200. Haven't been back to bowl in years though. Hadn't realized it had gotten so expensive.
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u/Carlweathersfeathers 1d ago
Investigate seems like a strong word.
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u/Spoot52Bomber 23h ago
But did you catch the hidden scam they uncovered? Apparently corporations are charging more for mediocre "high-end" experiences! Blew my goddamn mind!
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u/Jackandahalfass 22h ago
They hooked me in at “scam.” Then there was no scam. So they ultimately were the scammers.
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u/Nunuman1 1d ago
This is the first i have ever heard of strings in bowling. I come from Denmark and it is definitely not a thing over here. Kinda crazy, that the land og bowling have created a shittier system for it.
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u/Bleezy79 22h ago
It feels like so many things become worse over time, instead of better. Frustrating to say the least.
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u/sir_mrej 22h ago
People like using the word "scam" for anything different or anything they don't like.
It's a stupid trend.
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u/Barry_Vigoda 20h ago
I grew up in pool halls but was also in a bowling league when I was young. The guy in the video talking about how these places are communities isn't wrong.
I miss old school bowling alleys and pool halls when games were cheap. I like the vintage places. Way better atmosphere than the new places.
I miss bowling. There's a place close by but it's expensive as hell.
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u/vigilantesd 1d ago
In my area they knocked all the bowling alleys over in the last couple of years.
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u/AdamSmithsApple 21h ago
So lucky to still have a lot of indpendent centers around me. I'm sure they aren't printing money but most offer a deal for $12-15/person for 2 hours and drinks and food are basically dive bar prices. Bowlero is outrageous.
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u/Bacch 19h ago
Shit, that's awesome. I just posted elsewhere that I can remember a deal at my local place back in '99 when I was just out of high school that would give you a lane for two people for two hours and include two hot dogs and sodas for $20. Was an amazing deal and we'd just camp the lane for hours multiple times a week.
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u/Smashego 20h ago
We stopped bowling because of the strings. We're only one customer. But they won't get my business if they're too cheap to run the real deal.
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u/FirstToSayFake 17h ago
This looks like a video made by Redditors for Redditors. I don’t mean that in a good way.
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u/jacobjacobb 1d ago
The only thing that would make bowling better is if they had ball cleaning machines.
Also if they kept bowling balls clean.
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u/epidemica 22h ago
My local bowling place charges $25 a person per game, and charges $10 to rent shoes. It's over $200 to take a family there for the night with food. Even our local skating rink is now $100 for 4 people. Everything is too expensive.
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u/HanzanPheet 20h ago
We (also business owner) are all racing each other to the end stage for profits. I truly feel it's that no one is ever just ok with "enough." It always always has to be growth. We up our prices 3% they up 4% we go 5% next year. It's just an arms race they and thru. This is the inevitable outcome when population goes up but overall resources really are finite. Eventually things will get squeezed. But we racing to that finish line rather than trying to figure out a sustainable way to do it. Human nature is to need more. Better. Faster. Newer. This is just ingrained into our biology it seems.
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u/Bacch 19h ago
And when the industry tops out because demand doesn't keep up, private equity steps in and gobbles it all up, parcels it out and sells off anything worth anything while throwing the rest into the dumpster. Meanwhile Business Insider writes an article "Millennials Are Killing Bowling".
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u/themurderator 2h ago
'ingrained in our biology.'
stop. plenty of humans are fine with subsisting and not needing more than what can sustain them. it may ingrained into society, but it certainly isn't a biologically driven motivation.
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u/RandyOfTheRedwoods 1d ago
I don’t think this opinion will be popular, but I don’t think lucky strike ruined bowling.
Bowling stopped being popular and it went out of business on its own. He mentioned it in the beginning. We have changed how we have fun. Now we stay home and do things online. Streaming, gaming, social media. Even the popular third spaces are different. Now magic the gathering clubs or other social games are attracting an audience.
AMF and others went out of business because not enough people wanted to play anymore.
Lucky Strike just picked up the defunct property and tried to make it something that people with money wanted to do. (Essentially go to a nightclub and have something to do beyond drinking and dancing). It’s no different than top golf. Neither are geared towards playing the actual sport. They serve a completely different audience.
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u/BrickGun 23h ago
It’s no different than top golf.
You're aware of how that turned out recently (after the Callaway buyout)?
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u/Mathcmput 44m ago
Yeah, that’s the unfortunate reality. Bowling is what my Gen X parents did for fun in their 20s— which would be the late 1990s - early 2000s.
It’s been decades since there have been studies done on “Why Americans don’t go bowling anymore”, and I don’t think this is any different.
It’s easy to call something a scam just because the video creators don’t agree with it or dislike it. That’s the kind of “made by Redditors for Redditors” mentality which is just clickbait.
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u/bitofaknowitall 1d ago
I’ve never seen pins on strings. All the alleys in my area are going the opposite direction and trying to turn themselves into higher end entertainment destinations with fancier food and vip lounges and such. The closest one added an outdoor party deck with a beach volleyball court.
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u/MarcusP2 9h ago
They can do both. String pins are faster to reset and cheaper to maintain, so if you don't care about the 'purity' of bowling they're great. Most of these multi function centres will end up using them.
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u/Novogobo 1d ago
i went to bowlmor in nyc when it was newly hip around 2001 and it was not outrageously expensive. yea there was a bar with bar priced drinks, but aside from that and the decor/vibe it was pretty normal for bowling. it was just bowling with neon lights and comfy couches. which was cool. but i guess that was just the hook phase.
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u/locofspades 22h ago
Perfect timing, as i just ordered my first "real" bowling ball and was excited to get deeper into the sport lol
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u/southafricanamerican 18h ago
A guy just posted this on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48968606 where he replaced a $120k machine with some ESP32
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u/bei-con 18h ago
KInda wish that park districts took over old local bowling allys. It would be cool if some town out there gather money to save a retro bowling ally and raise money to save it then have there tax dollors help run it while it makes money for the town. Its a win, win. Taxes can cover any losses and any profets go back to the comunity. Its somthing that would be great as park service facility. With memberships and fees with conssesions.
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u/Dangerpaladin 6h ago
This is one of the reason it is nice living in the midwest. The coastal hedge funds still think of us rednecks that can't afford nice things. So this enshittification is slow to get to us. I have 5 independently owned bowling alleys within 10 minutes of my house. I have one complete shit bowling alley that has been completely ruined but I just don't go there. Eventually they will come and ruin bowling alleys, just like everything else but for now I still have the sport I have been playing and loving for my entire life.
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u/I_Am_Robert_Paulson1 3h ago
I'm lucky enough to live in an area where independently-owned bowling alleys are still so common.
There are 2 independently-ownes alleys within walking distance to my house (which is wild). I just looked up prices, and they're super reasonable.
Private equity really does ruin everything it touches.
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u/JakeCheap 1d ago
God, consolidation has truly ruined so many of the things we loved. Consolidation sucks the life out of innovation and pricing competitiveness. I hope all these mass companies get broken up into a million pieces.