Leases, however, are coming up for renewal on 40- and 50-year-old bowling alleys, said Jack Thomas, general manager of Fireside Lanes in Citrus Heights, Calif. 'Bowling centers were built around the concept of leagues.'Īcross northern California, roughly 45 alleys have closed since 1992, Haness said.

'The industry's in a state of transition,' Hansell said. The industry as a whole has seen league play go from 80 percent of the business to 50 percent, said Sandy Hansell, a Michigan-based industry consultant, appraiser, financial adviser and bowling alley broker. Women's bowling leagues fared even worse, plunging 68 percent to 5,892 members from 18,667. The local bowling association had 7,817 male members in 1998-99, down from 16,576 in 1977-78, a decline of 53 percent during a time when the population boomed. Haness points to a couple of ominous lists showing the decline, year-by-year, of league membership in the Sacramento area. The closures had more to do with real estate and leases than a decline in league play, but had business been particularly outstanding, the facilities probably would have found a way to stay open. In recent months, four Sacramento-area bowling centers have closed their doors. or you just die,' said Dave Haness, president and general manager of the facility. 'If that base has that kind of erosion, you either have to evolve.

Two decades ago, leagues constituted more than 70 percent of the business at Country Club Lanes in Sacramento. Sacramento provides a snapshot of an industry undergoing big changes. They're adding glow-in-the dark bowling, corporate parties and anything else they can think of to keep people coming. League players would commit themselves to showing up 35 weeks in a row, guaranteeing that a bowling center - they no longer call themselves alleys - could count on plenty of business.Ī steep decline in league interest, however, has pushed bowling centers across the nation to reinvent themselves as entertainment centers.

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