Friday, August 3, 2012

Bad News From Washington State

Greg Olson, the Executive Director of Washington state and a long time respected friend for over 30 years reports the following sanctioned league bowler trends in his state:

·         2011-2012 Season:
            * Adult: 37,700
            * Youth: 3,281

·         2010-2011 Season:
            * Adult: 40,461
            * Youth: 3,533

·         2007-2008 Season:
            * Adult: 48,099
            * Youth: 5,023

He further continues to say, “A full 22% more adult bowlers quit participating in a sanctioned league program during the past 4 seasons and 35% of the kids quit! What a horrible trend that none of us, BPAA nor USBC seem to talk enough about.”

12,141 bowlers during the past 4 seasons have left.  According to Greg, “If every league member paid $12 per week to bowl in a league at your center, that decline represents $145,692 in lost revenue EVERY WEEK!

Or $4.66 million dollars in one 32 week league season!

That’s a lot of cabbage, not to mention money.

And what are we doing about it?

Introducing 8 for 8 leagues, hosting bowling tournaments in the streets of Reno and going to a lot of meetings.

Seems like there is a disconnect somewhere. Shouldn’t there be a plan to help subsidize proprietors to get out there and market their business?  How about sending every marketing guru we have out there to counsel proprietors. (I’d volunteer tomorrow!)

What about national advertising?  Or local advertising by proprietor groups. Or training people on outside sales? Or starting from a different point of view?

Or just doing something DIFFERENTLY?

WE HAVE BEEN ON A SLIPPERY SLOPE FOR 34 YEARS OF DECLINING LEAGUE LINEAGE and all we can do is go to meetings.  C'mon man!

I know people are trying and working very hard to reverse this trend. And I mean no disrespect to their efforts


But maybe we are working on the wrong things.  

IYADWYADYWAGWYAG:  You know what that means. You’ve been to my seminars.

But hey, that's just my point of view. What do you think?

Sorry for the rant. 

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