“Not only are bloggers suckers for the remarkable, so are the people who read blogs.” - Seth Godin

THE THINGS WE THINK AND DO NOT SAY:

El Cajon, CA - 2 AM

It’s 2 AM and I’m alone in my hotel thinking about what is happening inside the industry that I love so much. Perhaps, it was conversations I had early this afternoon with frustrated bowling proprietors and their burned out volunteer board members or perhaps it was just something I ate that has my stomach turning inside. Either way, I believe I have something to say. I was always taught to “Have the courage to speak up, but to speak the truth in love”. Well, here goes. The truth is that the bowling industry is falling into obscurity, far too many centers are closing, our core membership base is aging and the number of sanctioned participants keep shrinking year after year. Our proprietors and associations are looking for guidance, leadership and innovation from the BPAA and USBC to help bring in the next generation of future bowlers. It’s one thing to see it in the numbers, but  its another to see the looks of frustration, desperation and hopelessness in the eyes of bowling center operators across the country. Here is the truth; our organization has become comfortable with the continued decline in memberships and complacent in our efforts to innovate. What will our organization and our sport look like if we continue this downward trend? Who will take the place of current bowlers as they age out? I’ve seen the future and it is bleak unless we take steps to turn the numbers around.

As you know, our organization has been around for more than 100 years. It survived during  World Wars, the Great Depression, and other historically challenging times. Our membership grew steadily for several decades before beginning its decline in the late 1970s-early 1980’s and I’m embarrassed to say that it’s been in decline ever since. I’m not one to complain for the sake of complaining. In fact, the reason I joined the USBC was because I wanted to bring my skills and experience to the organization in hopes of turning these disturbing statistics around.

On a personal level, I can’t imagine what my life would be like without the sport of bowling. I first discovered the sport in 1976 at the age of 12 when my family leased out the snack bar at the local bowling center in Dallas, TX. I found myself helping out in the snack bar after school and then bowling a few games each week. It was long before I joined a youth league at the encouragement of an in-house youth director. More than 40 years have passed since my journey began. As you know, I was an accomplished professional bowler, I built an award winning technology company, and I built my own award winning bowling center that proudly featured one of the largest youth programs in the state in addition to having a full line-up of leagues including daytime, afternoon and evening leagues; social leagues, competitive leagues, and Sport Challenge leagues. Despite the doubts of many proprietors and industry leaders, it is quite possible to build a successful organized league program. In fact, I would actually say that its easier today than ever before for a few reasons: First, bowling continues to be the number one participation sport in America,  An estimated 20,000,000 kids go bowling each year, bowling centers are the number one birthday party destination for kids, and lastly the innovation of black light bowling, bumper bowling, animated scoring systems, etc have helped bring a new demographic of participants into the sport.

More importantly, its never been easier for a small business to reach prospective customers thanks to the Internet, Social Media, Smartphones, Email and Text based marketing, yet for some reason our numbers keep shrinking

Bowling truly is a lifetime sport. But its more than a sport, bowling centers are social gathering places where people can form lifelong friendships while enjoying some friendly competition. Kids today can earn scholarship dollars for participating.  Today’s kids and their parents need to discover the benefits that bowling can bring and it’s the only way our sport can survive.

Tonight, I find those thoughts guiding me back to an important place, and an important truth. I care very much about the future of the sport. To me, the phrase “A Future for Our Sport” is more than a tagline, it’s a necessity in order to preserve bowling for generations to come. While this tagline is motto for our organization, I just don’t see our efforts in the field, or initiatives taking place that can actually move the needle towards us accomplishing this goal. I’m concerned that too many within our team are content with the downward trend and they fully expect numbers to continuing declining. I’m not sure if it’s a simply a matter of indifference or if they lack the courage to share what’s going on in the trenches. Perhaps they legitimately have no tangible ideas to turn things around, or maybe they fear ruffling some feathers of those team members who don’t want to be held accountable for the dismal results. Whatever the situation is, we need to develop programs and tactics that get us headed in the right direction otherwise the industry is doomed fail and we will all find ourselves looking for a new career.

I have had those water cooler conversations inside HQ, I’ve talked with frustrated proprietors who say that USBC and BPAA are worthless to them, I’ve talked to disgruntled bowlers who are ready to leave the sport, yet nobody seems to have the courage to stand up and say these things publicly. When you’re talking about an employee’s financial livelihood I can understand how some people might choose to remain silent in order to keep their job secure, but in order for change to happen someone has to have the courage to speak up and the organizations leadership needs to be willing to lend an ear or perhaps empower a task force that can take on these problems head on. Anything short of that is actually a disservice to both current and future members. We have an entire corporate campus dedicating to serving and supporting the existing membership base, but I wonder why we don’t have a membership development department whose sole job is to innovate new ways to bring more people into the sport and also to address the reasons that new members drop out after a year or two.  I know that the BPAA does assist in these areas, but if we are being transparent, most of their business development tools are dated and in dire need of updating or replacing.

TO BE CONTINUED