In 1980, 9.8 million Americans bowled in a sanctioned league. Forty years later, that number had dropped by 89%. This is the full history of professional bowling in America.
The Professional Bowlers Association was founded in 1958 by an Akron lawyer named Eddie Elias, who had never bowled a frame in his life. He collected $50 from each of 33 founding members in a New Jersey motel room and built it into a Saturday afternoon television empire. At its peak, ABC's Pro Bowlers Tour drew 12 to 14 million viewers and made Don Carter the first American athlete in any sport to sign a $1 million endorsement contract — before Mickey Mantle, before Johnny Unitas, before Arnold Palmer. A 1963 Sports Illustrated article reported that bowler Harry Smith was on pace to earn more that year than Sandy Koufax and Y.A. Tittle combined.
Then the Firestone Tournament of Champions paid out $100,000 in 1965. Earl Anthony won 43 PBA titles as a former forklift driver who practiced 350 games a week. Mark Roth and Marshall Holman and Pete Weber and Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Jason Belmonte each rewrote the record book. The AMF Pinspotter replaced a generation of teenage pinboys. The Brunswick Corporation fought AMF for sixty years over every physical element of American bowling infrastructure. Reactive resin coverstocks broke scoring records that had stood for fifty years.
By 1997, ABC cancelled its 35-year broadcast. By 1999, the PBA was on the edge of bankruptcy. Three former Microsoft executives — Chris Peters, Rob Glaser, and Mike Slade — bought it for $5 million in March 2000. They rebuilt the Tour on ESPN. Then Bowlero Corporation acquired the entire PBA in 2019. In December 2024, Bowlero rebranded as Lucky Strike Entertainment Corporation. The ticker changed from BOWL to LUCK.
Bowling is hiding several things. This channel is going to find each of them.
Chapters
- 0:00 — The 89 Percent Collapse
- 2:11 — American Bowling Congress, 1895
- 3:31 — The AMF-Brunswick Pinsetter War
- 6:40 — Eddie Elias Founds the PBA
- 9:55 — Earl Anthony, Pete Weber, Belmonte
- 14:05 — Equipment Revolution and TV Collapse
- 18:05 — Microsoft, Bowlero, Lucky Strike
- 22:58 — Bowling Is Hiding Several Things
Sources
- Professional Bowlers Association — Wikipedia
- Bowling Alone, Robert D. Putnam (2000)
- Sports Illustrated — A Guy Named Smith Is Striking It Rich (1963)
- USBC Open Championships
- Lucky Strike Entertainment Corporation
- Bowlero acquires PBA (2019)