Strategic marketing by the bowling industry, welcomed by teachers and parents in the tough economy, has led to an explosion in youth bowling in recent years in Illinois. By offering free bowling balls with youth lessons, bowling equipment for gym classes and college bowling scholarships awarded to children as early as elementary school, bowling officials said youth participation in the sport is higher than ever.
A few years ago, the bowling center, like many across the state and U.S., struggled as adult league membership dwindled to all-time lows while children chose soccer, video games and other modern pastimes over old-school bowling lanes.
But strategic marketing by the bowling industry, welcomed by teachers and parents in the tough economy, has led to an explosion in youth bowling in recent years in Illinois. By offering free bowling balls with youth lessons, bowling equipment for gym classes and college bowling scholarships awarded to children as early as elementary school, bowling officials said youth participation in the sport is higher than ever.
Today nearly 50 percent of Illinois elementary and middle school students are learning how to bowl through a special curriculum designed for gym class, including at 40 of Chicago’s public schools. At Illinois high schools, there are 221 varsity girls teams, compared with 83 in 1989, when bowling became a varsity sport recognized by the Illinois State High School Association. There were 184 boys teams last year, compared with 111 in 2003, its first varsity year, according to the Illinois State Bowling Proprietors Association.
“I love this,” said Kim Sims, co-owner of Fox Bowl who, along with her husband, has offered numerous incentives to inspire young bowlers to fill their center Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday afternoons. “It’s not just an investment in my future; it’s an investment in theirs.”
Once a standing commitment on people’s social calendars across the Chicago area, league bowling peaked in the 1980s when adults didn’t hesitate to sign up for teams that met weekly for 32 weeks. But as new forms of entertainment became available and people became busier, the bowling night tradition faded, said Bill Duff, executive director of the local Bowling Proprietors Association affiliate.
“There were so many more alternatives for people. You had the advent of computers and the Internet and, at the time, VHS tapes. That gave consumers a lot more options,” Duff said.
While the owners of some long-standing bowling alleys saw the shift as reason to close up shop and sell their properties for lucrative real estate values available at the time, others embraced new technology.
For the next two decades, features such as automatic scoring, gutter bumpers and black lighting helped bowling center owners make up revenue lost after the demise of league bowling. But the new attractions attracted occasional, not lifelong, bowlers.
And that, bowling industry leaders feared, would become a problem eventually.
“Centers were more successful in making revenue, but they had a declining league base, and sooner or later, that catches up to you,” Duff said.