Bowling Farewell

How I miss bowling! I had to give it up when the injuries from my career interferred, but I've never given up my love for the game! Alas, I'm not the only American to have retired my bowling shoes...

The U.S. had 4,061 bowling centers in 2012, down 25 percent from 1998, the earliest year for which the U.S. Census collected consistent data. But the decline of the bowling alley probably started a lot earlier. The U.S. added 2,000 bowling alleys between the end of World War II and 1958, when the American Society of Planning Officials reported that “the bowling alley is fast becoming one of the most important—if not the most important—local center of participant sport and recreation.”

The number of Americans who bowled increased 10 percent from 1980 to 1993, but those who belonged to leagues declined 40 percent. That made a convenient metaphor for the political scientist Robert Putnam, whose 2000 book Bowling Alone tracked American’s dwindling civic engagement.

This article is about the demise of bowling, but also it's re-branding: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-10/america-s-vanishing-bowling-alleys