Who all runs sport leagues?

[Erick Friedman]

Who all runs sport leagues? I looked at trying to have our majors turn into a sport league and the center said they would charge another $2.00 per person lineage if we turned it into a sport league.

Does that seem fair?

[Angel Zobel-Rodriguez]

Fair to whom? It's very difficult to find a proprietor to handle the extra work of a sport league. I know of only two props in my area that are willing, and even then it's a tough sell.

A center must clear all open play off in time to oil the lanes with a compliant pattern. In the center we have with a sport league, they start nearly an hour before the league starts and can have no one on it until the tapes are taken. Then someone has to take the tapes. Afterwards, they're usually forced to take off the oil because the house balls don't want to come back on the heavier oiled shots.

The fact that the center will need to have the personnel there to oil every single week and they're locking their lanes up for a good chunk of time on either side of the league's time, it seems somewhat reasonable.

What you might want to do is sit down with the proprietor, find out what he feels his added expenses are and either bowl more weeks, move to a more difficult time for him to fill, agree to spend more in lineage or perhaps in other areas of the center. Since scratch bowlers are almost always notorious for walking in with their Big Gulp in one hand and an order of Taco Bell in the other, assuring the proprietor he'll see returns is one way to convince him he's not doing all this work for nothing.

[Lance Rasmussen]

From what I understand, in Chicago, which is in the Bowling "Bible" Belt as it were, only has one sport league. The proprietors charge extra for lineage because of the added labor (strip full lane, layout sport condition, then full strip again after league and layout appropriate house condition).

The association even charges the league because, as Angel pointed out, someone has to come in each week to take a tape.

I personally don't fault the association or center for wanting to charge extra for sport leagues.

[Angel Zobel-Rodriguez]

I do find it a shame the association charges, because if the association were smart, they'd encourage someone to come with them and learn how to take the tapes.

Anyone willing to learn to take the tapes might also be willing to volunteer for other aspects (lane certification comes to mind). But even just teaching the person to take the tapes for their league and making them self-sufficient would save the association the work.

And associations are there to serve their members, while bowling centers are there to make a profit.

[Jeffrey Frye]

I run a Junior Gold Sport Bowling Travel League in NJ. We have 11 host centers this year and we're bowling a 26 week season. I have 40 league bowlers. I've been running this league for 4 years now and this is the first as a sport shot. My league bowlers, boys and girls, can be found all over the place in the USBC Sport Bowling top 50 (average, series, and game). Check it out at my web site at http://www.fryebowling.com (http://www.fryebowling.com/) . I purchased a tape pull up machine and we take tapes each week and send them to USBC Sport Bowling, though some centers are nice enough to pull tapes for us before we even arrive.

Whereas I don't have a lineage issue with the centers it did take me over a year to convince them this was a good thin to do. I ran into 2 basic road blocks: Centers that didn't have oiling machines that could put done a sport bowling compliant shot and centers that didn't want to be bothered entering another program into their machine (which also inlcuded not wanting to oil the house with 2 different shots).

I put centers on notice last year during the season that we'd be a sport bowling league this year, so it gave them a year to plan. Some centers dropped out that had been previous hosts of the league although I was surprised at how many new centers we were able to pick up as host centers.

A center that wants to charge you more just to put out a sport shot merely isn't interested in helping bowlers improve. I'd suggest you look to another center in your area to help you out.

I believe, for youth bowling, that sport bowling is key to the successful progression of these young athletes to high school and college bowling. Also, seems that all notional youth tournaments are being competed on sport bowling conditions.

[Lance Rasmussen]

In terms of bowling centers... it is a fine line...

In general... a happy customer.... is just that. Happy, content and will continue to return. Now granted, it is imposible to make EVERY bowler happy at the same time. This is why centers will generally vary their house shots to accomdate crankers, then tweaners, etc etc.

One center, that closed a few years ago, use to have the highest ave amongst the area. Many bowlers loved to bowl their because their average became inflated.

Is this a bad thing for the sport itself. Yes. The sport should be challenging. But at the same token, the sport is also one of entertainment. And a center can not be faulted for simply doing what it can to keep the vast majority of its customers happy, even if it gives a false sense of true ability of a bowler and their average.

Sport Leagues came about to attempt to bring back some integrety of the sport. Frankly, I think they should also force bowlers to use rubber balls to bowl as well, but you can not escape the high tech of the sports equipment that has also falsely inflated a bowlers ability.

The fact is, the lane equipment and the labor and care needed to put out a sports league compliant shot... is expensive. And with increased costs of parts, electricity, labor, insurance and all other things... its tough, especially for smaller centers.

I think a lot is also falsely blamed on the shot itself, versus learning how to bowl itself and with the same equipment. Now adays, it seems that many bowlers are hiring sherpas to bring in 8 to 20 bowling balls into a tournament or even league play each week. And instead of learning how to use one ball and how to move and play the lanes with the one piece of equipment, you switch balls every couple of frames... and if you have to switch more than 4 balls in a game or series... its the centers fault for not putting out a sports shot.