Ten Pin Bowling

Early history

Modern ten-pin bowling derives mainly from the German Kegelspiel, or kegeling, which used nine pins set in a diamond formation. The enjoyment of kegeling by German peasants contrasted with (lawn) bowls that was reserved for the upper classes, consistent with bowling's enduring reputation as a common man's sport.

A 1810 painting of Ipswich, England, shows a man bowling outdoors with a triangular formation of ten pins. An outdoor version of ten-pin bowling was advertised, also in Ipswich, at least as early as 1828.

An 1841 Connecticut law banned ninepin bowling because of its perceived association with gambling and crime, and people were said to circumvent the prohibition by adding a tenth pin. Other locations (e.g., 1838, re Baltimore and 1842, Charles Dickens re New York) also recount that strategy. Even earlier, an 1834 Washington, D.C. ordinance had limited the time (before 8 p.m. and not on Sundays) and place (more than 100 yards from inhabited houses) of "nine pin and ten pins" or "any game in the likeness or imitation thereof ... played with any number of pins whatsoever". U.S. newspapers referred to "ten pin alleys" at least as early as 1820 (also later in the 1820s and in the 1830s ).

In the mid-1800s, various alternatives to free-standing pins received U.S. patents to solve perceived problems in pinsetting and ball return, aiming to avoid the need for human pinsetters to perform these functions. One scheme (1851) involved pins with spherical bases that when hit by a ball merely fell over, in place, to be rotated back to a vertical position. A second arrangement (1853) involved resetting the pins via cords descending from respective pin bottoms to weights beneath the pin deck. Another design (1869) involved suspending the pins with overhead cords.

In 1884, the Brunswick Corporation became the first American bowling ball manufacturer, and by 1905 introduced the Mineralite (hard rubber) ball that was considered so revolutionary over wooden balls that it was displayed at the Century of Progress Exposition in 1934. In 1886, Joe Thum—who would become known as the "father of bowling"—began opening bowling alleys and over decades strove to elevate the sport's image to compete with upper-class diversions such as theaters and opera houses.

In 1875, delegates from New York City and Brooklyn bowling clubs formed the National Bowling Association (NBA) to standardize rules, but disagreements prevailed. In 1887 Albert G. Spalding wrote Standard Rules for Bowling in the United States, and in the mid-1890s the United Bowling Clubs (UBC) was organized with 120 members. The American Bowling Congress (ABC) was established in 1895, followed by the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) in the 1910s, such organizations promoting standardized rules and striving to improve the sport's image.

From 1920 to 1929, the number of ABC-sanctioned alleys grew from 450 to about 2,000, with Prohibition leading to the growth of family-appropriate "dry" alleys. The 1933 repeal of Prohibition allowed breweries to sponsor teams and bowlers, adding to bowling's reputation as a working-class sport. Though at the turn of the twentieth century most bowling alleys were small establishments, post-Prohibition bowling lanes shifted from side entertainment at fancy Victorian venues or seedier saloons to independent establishments that embraced the Art Deco style and fit the era's perceived "need for speed".

1940s to early 1960s

Gottfried Schmidt invented the first mechanical pinsetter in his garage in 1936, one implementation of which was publicly exhibited in 1946 before AMF placed a production model into service in 1952.

The 1940s through the 1970s became known as the "golden age of bowling", with ABC membership growing from 700,000 (1940), to 1.1 million (1947), to 2.3 million (1958), to 4.5 million (1963), Women's International Bowling Congress membership growing from 82,000 (1940) to 866,000 (1958), American Junior Bowling Congress membership growing from 8,000 (1940) to 175,000 (1958), and sanctioned individual lanes growing from 44,500 (1947) to 159,000 (1963).

Bowling's growth was fueled by the deployment of automatic mechanical pinsetters by AMF (1952) and Brunswick (1955), television broadcasts (said to be "ubiquitous" in the 1950s), modernization and stylization of establishments with amenities to attract broader clientele, and formation of bowling leagues. Though President Truman had installed a bowling alley in the White House in 1947, a report of the American Society of Planning Officials in 1958 characterized bowling alleys as the "poor man's country club".

ABC bylaws had included a "white-males-only" clause since its inception in the 1890s, but numerous lobbying efforts and legal actions after World War II by civil rights and labor organizations led to a reversal of this policy in 1950.

Sports agent Eddie Elias founded the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) in 1958 with 33 members, and the first PBA tournaments began in 1959. The Pro Bowlers Tour TV program aired from 1962 through 1997.

In the 1930s and 1940s, professional bowling was dominated by "beer leagues" with many of the best bowlers sponsored by beer companies, but by 1965 the PBA tour was televised nationally on ABC Sports with sponsors such as Coca-Cola and Ford.

In parallel with professional bowling was "action bowling" or "pot bowling"—bowling matches based on monetary bets—historically associated with the New York underworld from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Late 1960s to 1980

The first ten-pin lanes in Europe had been installed in Sweden in 1909, but attempts to popularize the sport in Europe were unsuccessful over the next several decades, though hundreds of lanes were installed on U.S. military bases in the U.K. during World War II. Various countries developed the sport to some extent, and the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ; now World Bowling) was formed in 1952 to coordinate international amateur competition.

A firmer establishment of the sport began in the U.K. in 1960 in London (Stamford Hill) in January 1960, and the British Tenpin Bowling Association (BTBA) was formed the following year. The first British made tenpin was by H Massil and sons who received the permit no.1 from the BTBA. Various other countries, including Australia, Mexico and Japan, adopted the trend over the ensuing decade. After initial faddish growth in the U.K., however, the sport did not thrive as it did in the U.S., and by the 1970s many British bowling alleys were converted to serve competing pastimes, such as bingo.

The "Lane Master" automatic lane cleaning and conditioning machine was first deployed in the 1960s.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, top bowling professionals made twice as much money as NFL football stars, received million-dollar endorsement contracts, and were treated as international celebrities. The $100,000 Firestone Tournament of Champions launched in 1965, in a decade that saw ABC membership peak at almost 4.6 million male bowlers. The number of sanctioned bowling alleys peaked at about 12,000 in the mid-1960s, mostly in blue-collar urban areas, and Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) membership peaked at 4.2 million members in 1979.

In the late 1960s, the participation sport of bowling found itself competing with spectator sports and outdoor recreational activities. The number of certified bowling centers was to eventually decline from its 1960s high of 12,000 to 6,542 in 1998 and 3,976 in 2013. The decline was noted acutely in waning league participation over the intervening decades.

1980 to 2000

Tournament prize funds in the 1980s included the PBA National Championship ($135,000, its largest) and the Firestone Tournament of Champions ($150,000), and PBA membership approached 2,500. Ten-pin bowling became an exhibition sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics (Seoul), has been a medal sport since its debut at the 1991 Pan American Games (Havana), and was included in the 1998 Commonwealth Games (Kuala Lumpur).

Outside elite and professional bowling, participation in leagues—traditionally the more profitable end of the business—declined from a 1980 peak (8 million), compelling alleys to further diversify into entertainment amenities. As busier, two-earner households became more common in the 1980s to make league participation more difficult, the number of spectator sports and competing leisure time opportunities (jogging, tennis, skiing) grew. While league bowling decreased by 40 percent between 1980 and 1993, the total number of bowlers actually increased by 10 percent during that period, with nearly 80 million Americans going bowling at least once during 1993. In 1995, the National Bowling Stadium (Reno, Nevada) was constructed at a cost of $47.5 million, but the PBA Pro Bowlers Tour TV program was canceled in 1997 after a 35-year run.

In 1991, equipment manufacturer DBA Products released "The Lane Walker"—the first computer-driven lane cleaning and oiling machine, programmable to clean up to 50 lanes.

The early 1990s brought the development of reactive resin ("reactive") balls with chemically "tacky" surfaces that enhance traction to dramatically enhance hook and substantially increase the likelihood of striking, raising average scores even for less experienced bowlers.

The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) reported 1997 bowling product sales of $215 million, the SGMA president attributed an increase in popularity to bowling alley remodeling, technological innovations in balls and lanes, computerized scoring, and promotion by bowling organizations.

2000 to present

From 1998 to 2013, the number of American bowling centers fell by one quarter. Similarly, in the two decades following 1997, the number of USBC-certified lanes—also indicative of business viability—declined by one-third. This business decline is often attributed to waning league participation: USBC membership—indicative of league participation that was the main source of revenue—declined by two-thirds in those two decades, and the portion of alley revenue attributable to leagues is estimated to have dropped from 70% to 40%. Political scientist Robert D. Putnam's book Bowling Alone (2000) asserts, with some controversy, that the retreat from league bowling epitomizes a broader societal decline in social, civic and community engagement in the U.S.

As an indication of the decline, AMF Bowling, the largest operator of bowling centers in the world at the time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001, and again in 2012. By 2013, AMF Bowling had merged with New York-based Bowlmor (no relation to the defunct, 1940s-founded Bowl-Mor firm that invented the automatic pinsetter for candlepin bowling), the company becoming known as Bowlmor AMF.

In 2000, three former tech industry executives bought a debt-laden PBA—which saw its 36-year television contract with ABC Sports end in 1997—and turned it from a non-profit league into a for-profit organization, and invested heavily in marketing. The January 2005 merger of four U.S. bowling organizations to form the USBC formed a "central brand" aiming to grow the sport. Beginning late in the decade of the 2000s, the two-handed approach became popularized, first by Australian Jason Belmonte, with some hoping that the controversial delivery style would boost popularity of the sport. In January 2013, the eight-team PBA League began competition, the strategy being that basing teams in specific geographic localities would generate viewer enthusiasm and corporate sponsorship in the same manner as teams in other professional sports. Still, continuing the reversal of bowling's peak popularity in the 1960s, in the 2012–2013 season the average yearly winnings of the ten highest-earning PBA competitors was less than US$155,000, and the average for the remaining 250 competitors was $6,500—all much less than a rookie NFL football player's minimum base salary of $375,000.

Estimates of the number of total (league and non-league) bowlers in the U.S. have varied, from 82 million (1997, International Bowling Museum) to 51.6 million (2007, research firm White Hutchinson) to 71 million (2009, USBC), the USBC stating in 2019 that bowling is still the #1 participation sport in the U.S. More broadly, the International Bowling Museum stated in 2016 that bowling is played by 95 million people in more than 90 countries. In an era of continual decline in league participation, bowling centers promoted "party bowling" and black-light-and-disco-ball "cosmic bowling" and experienced a shift from blue-collar participants to open-play (non-league) family-oriented clientele in combined bowling and entertainment centers, some offering laser tag, indoor playgrounds, go-karting, climbing walls, arcade games, skating rinks, gourmet restaurants, and nightclub-style bowling lounges. School sport programs expanded, the USBC stating that more than 5,000 high schools offered bowling as a competitive sport, with 50,000 student bowlers participating in 2009–2010. In 2011, the Bowling Proprietor's Association of America stated that more than 60% of U.S. bowlers were under age 34, that 46% were girls and women, and that children participated in bowling at a higher rate than any other population group.

In contrast to the U.S., the 2000s and 2010s brought a bowling renaissance in the U.K., achieved by accommodating sophisticated modern tastes by providing (for example) retro style bowling alleys outfitted with 1950s Americana, "boutique bowling", "VIP lanes", and cameras for instant replays, and by rejuvenating bowling "alleys" into diverse-entertainment bowling "centres". The population of ten-pin bowling centres grew from a low of barely 50 (in the 1980s) to over 200 (2006), with almost a third of Britons going bowling in 2016 and league participation growing over 20% over two years (2015-2017).

Though ten-pin bowling was a demonstration sport in the 1988 Summer Olympics (Seoul) and has been included in the Pan American Games since 1991, after making the short list for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics (Tokyo), it was cut. One commentator noted that the sport's limited geographic popularity (the U.S., Australia and a few European and South American countries), and aging demographic of those who follow the sport, make it difficult to convince an Olympic Committee that wants to appeal to youth.