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Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

And yet he never addresses the "Why?" did this happen to bowling?

I suspect it is socioeconomics. Bowling is kind of viewed as a lower-middle class sport, and the economy has wiped the lower-middle class out.

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I think part of the problem is that even if bowling is quite difficult it doesn't appear to be so. Even if the athletes are in great shape, you can't really tell at all. The great feat of a perfect 300 in bowling is accomplished regularly.

The only things that really seem to distinguish a great bowler are his/her speed and accuracy. That's basically it. There's no Michael Jordan running on thin air with his tongue out. There's no massive 7' Shaq shattering glass with the force of his dunks. There's no Peyton Manning watching over his team, radiating some austere strategic wisdom (barring this last Super Bowl...).

Frankly, I'd (very seriously) rather watch professional juggling than bowling.

Finally, the overall style of bowling as a sport is decidedly 1970s midwest America. The US is undergoing probably an unprecedented urban trend right now. As profoundly shallow as it might be, bowling is just not sexy at all.

It's the oil pattern that makes it difficult. Spectators can't see it, and thus can't appreciate the adjustments necessary to continue throwing good shots.

They used the blue dyed oil on a televised match a few months ago as an attempt to show it, but I feel that gives the bowlers an unfair advantage.

If there were a way to show the oil moving in real time to both the TV and live audience, I think you could start getting people interested in the game at a high level. Much the same way embedding little cameras in a poker table enabled the audience to see a live poker game unfold.

I'd also like to see the PBA fully embrace video streaming, and no, Xtra Frame doesn't count. I want to be able to watch follow an individual player throughout the 4 days of a typical PBA tournament. I have my favorite bowlers and I want to see their scores in realtime. I want to see how the lanes are changing and how the bowlers are adapting.

I love the sport; I've been bowling since I was very young. But, I too, would rather watch anything other than a PBA telecast.

Maybe they could inject a dye that was not visible to the eye, but that the cameras could pick up, and then overlay it digitally in some way to the tv audience.

I'm thinking along the same lines. I'd really like to find a chemist to work on the project with.

What about dye that is only visible to UV light?

That was my first thought as well.

Barium, like for medical tests. Radioactivity solves everything!

>Finally, the overall style of bowling as a sport is decidedly 1970s midwest America. The US is undergoing probably an unprecedented urban trend right now. As profoundly shallow as it might be, bowling is just not sexy at all.

I think that's the whole story right there.

> Frankly, I'd (very seriously) rather watch professional juggling than bowling.

Isn't professional juggling specifically supposed to be entertaining to watch?

Bowling is kind of viewed as a lower-middle class sport, and the economy has wiped the lower-middle class out.

I thought the complaint was that the center has been pushed a bit downwards, which would suggest to me that the lower-middle is at least as robust as ever.

My completely unfounded guess for the reason is due to fashion. It used to be OK to acknowledge one's working-man lifestyle (coincidence that the article cites bowling's heyday at the same time America was enjoying "Urban Cowboy" and "Smokey and the Bandit"?), but we're all supposed to pretend to have more sophistication today.

I think you and the parent are saying the same thing. The lower-middle class no longer "exists"... because it now thinks of itself as upper-middle class. It's still there for anyone else to see, of course, but whether it embraces its own status determines a lot about its purchasing habits.

> I thought the complaint was that the center has been pushed a bit downwards, which would suggest to me that the lower-middle is at least as robust as ever.

I don't find this true, in my experience. The "smear" that used to characterize the people I knew is gone. There are a bunch of white collar "professionals". There are a bunch of low wage "service" people. However, the vast chunk of blue collar factory workers, machinists, welders, steelworkers, miners, etc. seems to just be gone.

So, is there money in it for the person who makes it hip and ironic? No teenage boomer would have been caught playing kickball, but there are thriving leagues for the millenials.

It probably is just a death by a thousand cuts rather than any one specific thing. The pace of the sport is slow. It's doesn't have the level of physicality of other sports. The players are not necessarily good looking or in good physical condition. Some of the top guys are fairly old with beer guts and probably remind people of their grandparents. etc, etc.

It probably could be at the level of golf if bowling companies were able to sell high-end products. But for better or worse, bowling is a pretty cheap sport to play and doesn't require owning any gear whatsoever.

Predictability of the televised game for the average person, IMO. T20 cricket is a huge TV success in Australia because, on any given delivery, someone is likely to smack the ball recklessly or get out. In bowling, what's going to happen? Maybe a strike, maybe almost a strike! Unlikely to be as exciting for the average viewer.

Quite a few bowling alleys around my city have redecorated in the last few years. They are now painted black, with mood lighting, and giant projection screens at the end of the alleys. The background music is also much louder than it used to be. The bowling seems to have become just a distraction, not the purpose of going.

Also, video games.

Interesting point. I wonder if arcades, bowling alleys, and roller rinks all followed the same trajectory. My local bowling alley actually had an extensive arcade in the late 80s to mid 90s. You'd go for the bowling and stay for the Cruis'n USA.

It's always hard to tell if these things are actually less popular than in decades past, or if it's just that I'm no longer in elementary and middle school.

He does a bit. Bowling is far far easier than it once was due to ball technology.

This is true of baseball too (well, bat technology), but there the response was "hey, screw technology! We'll just ban modern equipment!" Why the difference in bowling?

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