Bowling World Newspaper

10 www.bowlingworld.com - June 2019 Where Will Bowling Be in 45 Years? by Dave Williams It‘s always fun to look back at bowling to see where we have been, and where we may be headed in the next 45 years. Why do I focus on the number 45, you might ask? It‘s all in response to an article that John Mazey wrote for the Bowlers Journal way back in 1988, entitled ―Wither Bowling in the Next 75 years?‖ In the article, John interviewed bowling stalwarts of the day asking where bowling would be in the year 2063. Mazey, an advertising genius with AMF for many years, was one of my mentors at the venerable AMF headquarters in Westbury, New York, before the breakup of the Fortune 500 Company in 1986. Although I was one of only 60 individuals that elected (and was chosen) to make the move to Richmond, Virginia, John decided to stay on Long Island and accepted a position with SUNY College at Old Westbury, teaching advertising and media research courses. Mr. Mazey‘s article was actually written as a research project for a Graduate Com- munication Arts course. The reason that I remember the article so well is that John had asked me for my bowling expertise in editing the essay, since he was indeed an advertising genius, but not even a casual bowler. John elected to interview a num- ber of bowling‘s heavyweights from that era to get an idea of what they saw in their crystal ball future for bowling. It‘s interesting to look back now, almost halfway to Mr. Mazey‘s 75 year forecast, to see just what some of bowling‘s leading visionaries had to say about the future. While some thoughts are completely out of step, others are surprisingly accurate. We will zero in on the accurate. The panel members were given a survey by Mazey and asked to respond to a se- ries of questions, and then invited to use their imagination and provide their own ―blue sky‖ ideas of what bowling might be like in 2063. Not surprisingly, almost eve- ryone agreed that bowling would still be with us and that it‘s popularity would con- tinue to grow around the world. Most of the surveys also agreed that the American Bowling Congress and the Women‘s International Bowling Congress would merge within 75 years. It actually happened in 2005, with the formation of the United States Bowling Congress (USBC), just 17 years after the survey took place. How about the price for a game of bowling? Yvonne Hines, then President of the local Bowling Proprietors Association (BPAA), and owner of Port Jeff Bowl on Long Island, predicted that her current top open play price of $2.25 per game would zoom to an amount well above $10. By utilizing the Smart Asset Calculator to determine the value of a dollar over time in the United States, the average price for a game of bowling in 2019 would equate to $5.00 per game, and $8.50 per game in 2063. Nick Wallace, whose first project at AMF when hired as Facilities Designer, was the East Meadow Bowl modernization in 1986, felt that bowling centers would be ―multi- use and multi-level structures, with more of a resort or entertainment atmosphere.‖ Sonny Frantz, President of the national BPAA that year, also agreed that ―more total fun and recreation-only programs‖ would dominate. Gene Greystone of Computer Sports Systems (creators of the AMF AccuScore and AccuTrac Systems), said that ―people in 2063 will not be willing to commit to a long league season or league structures as we know them.‖ Ron Wood, another AMF executive at the time, felt that ―casual open play would dominate the market and competitive leagues would become almost non-existent.‖ Perhaps one of the greatest visionary prophesies came from Dick Davis of Fair Lanes, which was acquired by AMF in 1995. Mr. Davis predicted that ―if bowling does not prosper, it will cease to exist in areas with higher value alternative uses for real estate.‖ He went on to say that ―what has happened in Nassau and Suffolk Counties in New York (Long Island), Bergen County (New Jersey) and Los Angeles would be repeated in other major markets.‖ Davis also predicted that chain opera- tions would grow from 20% to at least 60% of the industry. Not to be outdone, Mazey opined that magazines such as the Bowlers Journal would no longer be published each month, but instead be provided to your own home via a ―chromafax‖ machine. Mazey said that ―the still-to-be-invented chro- mafax machine would print pages in both 3-D and full color in less than five seconds a page.‖ Now while email existed in 1988, it did not become widely used until 1995, when AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe were the early promoters of the system. John‘s pre- diction was perhaps the most ―blue sky‖ idea of them all, with only the vehicle for obtaining the information slightly askew. What other predictions in John Mazey‘s article might come true? Unless a new mira- cle drug is invented that will prolong the average life span, we‘ll have to leave the 2063 prognostication to another bowling historian… A Mazey Miracle! Every year at Christmas Mr. Mazey would send out a unique "homemade" card, like the ti-fold example that appears above. I have carried on his tradition in Mazey style for the past 32 years. Looking for a qualified 82-70 Mechanic for 16 lane center in beautiful Paso Robles, CA Knowledge of BESX scoring a plus! WANTED - 82-70 MECHANIC