E-dition No. 1,023 • Friday, September 28, 2018
Editor: Bob Johnson (bjibob@aol.com)
Seeking Centers That Feature Live Music
Does your center play host to live music on a regular basis or even occasionally?
We’d like to hear from you for an upcoming story in Bowling Center Management (BCM) magazine.
Simply send a short note to bjibob@aol.com with your name, the name and city/state of your center, your phone number, your email address and a brief description of your live music programming. You just might be featured in an upcoming issue of BCM.
And because the Cyber Report is not read by everyone — hard to believe, but true — if you know of a center that features live music, we’d appreciate learning about it, and we’ll follow up on your tip.
Thanks for your help!
Call for Bowl Expo Speakers Closes This Sunday
The Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America will close its 2019 International Bowl Expo call for speakers this coming Sunday.
Education has been and will continue to be a primary focus at Bowl Expo as thousands will gather next summer in Las Vegas to learn new skills and the best practices that can be put into place at bowling centers and family entertainment centers around the world.
“In an effort geared toward continuous improvement, the BPAA uses a process for selecting educational speakers for Bowl Expo, starting with a call for speakers,” explained Kelly Bednar, BPAA’s Director of Education.
A limited number of compensation packages are being made available for 2019. If you know of someone that would like to be considered, or that you think would be an asset as a speaker at International Bowl Expo 2019, forward this link to them: http://bpaa.com/bowlexpo/general-info/2019-call-for-speakers.
But do it now, because the application process will close on Sunday.
USBC Board, IBC Youth Committee Apps Available
Applications for the 2019-20 United States Bowling Congress Board of Directors and for the International Bowling Campus Youth Committee are available online, but interested parties need to act quickly.
The application deadline is Oct. 1.
For information about the responsibilities and time commitments involved, and to apply online, go to: https://bowl.com/About/About_Home/Apply_for_USBC_Board_or_IBC_Youth_Committee/.
PBA Playoffs Provide Numerous Marketing Opportunities
With the return of Professional Bowlers Association competition to broadcast television looming in 2019, the PBA and its new broadcast partner, FOX Sports, are finalizing plans for an historic PBA Playoffs series that promises to add unprecedented drama to the Go Bowling! PBA Tour’s 61st season.
Beginning in January, PBA members will compete in a schedule of 13 PBA Tour events, earning points toward 24 berths in an all-new PBA Playoffs match play elimination series that will unfold over nine weeks of television coverage on FOX Sports’ FS1 and FOX channels.
The 10-event television series will begin with live coverage of the first Round of 24 matches from Bayside Bowl in Portland, Maine, on Monday, April 8, and conclude with live coverage of the semifinal and final rounds on FOX on Saturday and Sunday, June 1-2, also from Bayside Bowl.
Details for each tournament, including schedules, formats and more, can be found here: https://www.pba.com/Tournaments/Seasons/132?showAll=True.
The winner of the PBA Playoffs will earn $100,000.
“With the largest first prize in bowling at stake and live broadcast TV on FOX for the championship rounds, qualifying for the PBA Playoffs will be the goal of every player on the 2019 PBA Tour,” said Tom Clark, PBA CEO and Commissioner. “At each of the 13 Tour events leading up to the Playoffs, points will be at stake, with only the top 24 making the cut. Keeping track of that points list during the first part of the year, and then watching all the intense elimination matches play out on mostly Monday nights in the spring on FS1, the Playoffs will capture the attention of fans everywhere.
“We couldn’t choose a better home for the first PBA Playoffs on FOX Sports than Portland’s Bayside Bowl, with its great fan base and unique atmosphere. Maine is going to host the most exciting tournament ever held.”
Here is the PBA Playoffs telecast schedule (all times Eastern):
* Monday, April 8 — Round of 24 (FS1, 7 p.m., live)
* Monday, April 15 — Round of 24 (FS1, 8 p.m.)
* Monday, April 22 — Round of 24 (FS1, 9 p.m.)
* Monday, April 29 — Round of 24 (FS1, 9 p.m.)
* Monday, May 6 — Round of 16 (FS1, 9 p.m.)
* Monday, May 13 — Round of 16 (FS1, 9 p.m.)
* Monday, May 20 — Quarterfinals (FS1, 9 p.m.)
* Monday, May 27 — Quarterfinals (FS1, 9 p.m.)
* Saturday, June 1 — Final Four (FOX, noon, live)
* Sunday, June 2 — Championship Round (FOX, noon, live)
For creative ideas on how proprietors can take advantage of the PBA Playoffs schedule and other telecasts during the 2019 Go Bowling! PBA Tour season, see the upcoming October issue of BCM.
For full details on the PBA Playoffs and qualifying guidelines, click here: http://www.bowlersjournal.com/plans-for-revolutionary-pba-playoffs-developing-for-2019/.
GameTime Daytona Grand Opening This Weekend
GameTime will celebrate the official grand opening of its fifth flagship location this weekend in Daytona Beach, Fla.
The 35,000-sq.-ft. family entertainment center is located at One Daytona, across from the Daytona International Speedway.
Friday’s activities will include a Dine N’ Play Combo offer, a 50%-off Happy Hour and a special appearance by SONIC the Hedgehog.
On Saturday, the Tremble and Kaylee team from the 103.3 Morning Vibe program will give away prizes and station merchandise, SONIC will again be available for photos, and GameTime will give away cool swag and prizes.
GameTime Daytona features more than 100 new and retro classic arcade games, prize machines, private banquet rooms, a full liquor bar with ore than 70 HDTVs, a full-service restaurant serving contemporary American cuisine and — a first for GameTime — 12 bowling lanes.
“The guests that have visited us during our soft opening have been truly wonderful,” said GameTime’s owner and CEO, Mike Abecassis. “We look forward to our grand opening weekend and meeting more of the community. We hope everyone enjoys our new venue as much as we enjoy serving Daytona Beach.”
A special feature on GameTime and Abecassis will appear in the October issue of BCM. For more on the company and its locations, go to: www.gametimeplayers.com.
Moehrle Named Chair of SMART Board
The Scholarship Management and Account Reporting for Tenpins (SMART) has expanded its board of directors with the selection of four new members, and also has selected a new chairperson.
The four new members of the SMART Corporation Board of Directors are Darlene Baker of Mahomet, Ill.; Tom Bluth of Davie, Fla.; Andrew Cain of Phoenix, Ariz., and Joe Schumacker of Davie, Fla.
Current board member Steve Moehrle has taken on the role of chairperson. Wally Hall, who has served as chair since 2010, will remain on the board along with John Walker, the President and CEO of the Greater Richmond ARC and former CEO of Qubica AMF Worldwide.
“On behalf of the providers and recipients in the SMART program, I welcome our new board members and I appreciate the opportunity to serve as chair,” Moehrle said. “I also want to thank Mr. Hall for his continued service. With the excellent SMART team and the addition to the board of these high-quality professionals, I am confident SMART will have great leadership for many years to come.”
In 2018, the SMART Board has delivered more than $4 million to provider accounts from income earnings distributions and expired accounts. SMART has approximately 3,500 providers, and nearly 200,000 scholarship recipients have their scholarships in the SMART program.
To learn more about the SMART board members, click here: https://bcmmag.com/2018/09/27/moehrle-succeeds-hall-as-chair-of-smart-board/.
It’s Official: Windy City Ceases Publication
During competitive bowling’s heyday, it seemed as if every decent-sized metropolitan area had its own bowling-focused newspaper.
At one point in Southern California alone, the Pacific Bowler, California Bowling News, Citrus Bowler and California Kegler were publishing simultaneously on a weekly basis. Each was packed with reports on high-level leagues, results of local tournaments, and previews of upcoming events.
Today, that region is down to just one bowling publication (the California Bowling News), which publishes a print edition only once per month, with weekly editions available online. Bowling newspapers in many other regions have disappeared completely.
Now, another such publication has been shut down by its owners, Lisa Vint and Bill Vint.
“Lisa and I have ‘officially’ ceased publication of hard copies of Windy City Bowling News after serving the greater Chicagoland area for 28-plus years,” Bill Vint told the BJI Cyber Report this week. “Like most every other print publication, we fell victim to today’s growing dependence on social media. Without the advertising support of the bowling business community in the area we served, it became economically impossible to survive.”
Could the Windy City Bowling News live on in some digital form?
“We are maintaining a presence on Facebook, and contemplating the creation of a website, but we haven’t arrived at a decision on whether we’ll proceed with that concept or not,” Vint said.
When the Vints decided to publish Windy City in the early 1990s, their objective was to provide the greater Chicagoland market — from Rockford to northwest Indiana, and all of Illinois in between — with a high-quality “news” paper.
“We agreed we’d publish WCBN as long as it paid for itself,” Vint explained. “It was never our goal to make a living doing it, and for almost three decades, WCBN paid for itself. Lisa had the financial expertise to manage the business; I had the journalism background. We both had a passion for the sport, and we believed we were providing an important service to the bowling community.”
Looking back on the experience, Vint said, “We had fun. We are grateful to all of those who supported us along the way. We feel like we made a contribution, but our time has run out.”
A Look at Neil Hupfauer’s Newest Venture
Neil Hupfauer could be considered a pioneer in the ongoing transition of traditional bowling centers to multi-attraction family entertainment centers, and gained a national reputation for his approach to the management and marketing of Fun Fest and early Main Event facilities in Texas.
Been wondering what Hupfauer has been up to lately?
Intercard, a company that provides cashless technology for the attractions and amusement industries, recently completed an installation at Corky’s Gaming Bistro in Grapevine, Texas, which is the latest venture from Hupfauer.
The newly built Corky’s features an updated bar menu with burgers, tacos, pizza, signature cocktails, wine and a rotating list of more than 50 craft beers in a casual environment.
For entertainment there are 78 classic arcade games, 12 pinball machines, four escape rooms and 10 axe-throwing lanes.
Hupfauer said he chose Intercard for his new venture because its system can track individual games played, even when they are set up for timed play.
Corky’s Gaming Bistro opened in August, and Hupfauer says the reaction from customers has been “phenomenal — just phenomenal.”
Hupfauer continues to work as the Interim Chief Operating Officer at Cinergy Entertainment, and Cinergy CEO Jeff Benson is a private investor in Corky’s.
For a look at Hupfauer’s new venture, click here: https://corkysgamingbistro.com/.
Bowlers, Proprietors Could Have Vegas Airport Choice
A second airport to serve Las Vegas, an idea that died during the Great Recession, might be resuscitated, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
Clark County commissioners have voted for an environmental impact study to be conducted for the proposed airport on 6,000 acres about 30 miles south of Las Vegas.
Rising tourism boosted traffic at McCarran International Airport to 48.5 million passengers last year. The airport can handle 60 million passengers, county aviation director Rosemary Vassiliadis said. That number would assume an additional 35,000 hotel rooms added to the market, she added.
If approved, the airport would be built off Interstate 15, between Jean and Primm. Jean is about 19 miles south of the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa, home to the South Point Tournament Bowling Plaza, which is contracted to host a number of highly attended tournaments in upcoming years. Primm sits at the California/Nevada border, 12 miles south of Primm. Other Las Vegas properties also are contracted to host bowling tournaments and other events, and the Paris Resort again will host BPAA’s International Bowl Expo in 2019.
Air capacity is crucial to the future of Las Vegas Valley, Vassiliadis said.
10 Lanes of Fun at New MGM Casino
Attendance at MGM’s new casino in Springfield, Mass., which includes 10 lanes of bowling among its attractions, is reportedly exceeding expectations.
Revenues also are strong nearly a month after opening, MGM Springfield President Michael Mathis told state regulators last week. Mathis and other MGM officials said the hotel, casino and entertainment complex is averaging around 50,000 daily visitors on weekends and about 25,000 daily visitors during the week since its opening last month.
The casino is seen as a key element in the comeback of Springfield’s downtown area in the wake of a devastating tornado that ripped through the area seven years ago.
In addition to bowling, the 2 million-sq.-ft. complex includes a hotel with 250 guest rooms and suites, movie theatre, spa, 2,550 slot machines, 120 table games, a high-limit room, a poker room with 23 tables, and restaurants overseen by Michael Mina and Meghan Gill, the season 14 winners of the television series, “Hell’s Kitchen.”
The bowling lanes are located inside the TAP Sports Bar, which showcases professional and college sporting events while serving up fan-favorite food and an extensive beer selection.
PWBA’s 2019 Schedule, Host Centers Set
The 2019 PWBA Tour schedule is set and the season will kick off in Cleveland with the PWBA Greater Cleveland Open from April 25-27.
The 2019 schedule includes three new venues — Golden Pin Lanes in Tucson, Ariz.; Executive Strike and Spare in Louisville, Ky., and Buffaloe Lanes North in Raleigh, N.C. The latter center is operated by the Buffaloe brothers, who were named BPAA’s 2018 Proprietors of the Year and featured on the June cover of BCM.
The full schedule:
* April 25-27 — PWBA Greater Cleveland Open, Yorktown Lanes, Cleveland, Ohio
* May 2-4 — PWBA Twin Cities Open, Cedarvale Lanes, Eagan, Minn.
* May 9-11 — PWBA Lincoln Open, Sun Valley Lanes, Lincoln, Neb.
* May 15-21 — USBC Queens, Northrock Lanes, Wichita, Kan.
* May 30-June 1 — PWBA Sonoma County Open, Double Decker Lanes, Rohnert Park, Calif.
* June 6-8 — PWBA Tucson Open, Golden Pin Lanes, Tucson, Ariz.
* June 13-15 — PWBA Fountain Valley Open, Fountain Bowl, Fountain Valley, Calif.
* June 16-23 — U.S. Women’s Open, Texas Station, Las Vegas, Nev.
* July 25-28 — Striking Against Breast Cancer Mixed Doubles, Copperfield Bowl, Houston, Texas
* Aug. 1-3 — PWBA East Hartford Open, Silver Lanes, East Hartford, Conn.
* Aug. 8-10 — PWBA Louisville Open, Executive Strike and Spare, Louisville, Ky.
* Aug. 15-17 — PWBA Orlando Open, Boardwalk Bowl, Orlando, Fla.
* Aug. 21-24 — PWBA Players Championship, Buffaloe Lanes North, Raleigh, N.C.
* Dates and site to be determined — PWBA Tour Championship
TRAY and Fetch Rev Announce Integration
TRAY, an enterprise point-of-sale and self-service solution, has announced a new integration with FetchRev, an automated foot-traffic generator for local businesses, including bowling centers.
Through this partnership, businesses using TRAY’s self-service platform can now monetize the data captured at the kiosk by sending actionable promotional offers.
TRAY and FetchRev use each other’s APIs to communicate, allowing the FetchRev platform to receive customer data captured during the ordering process at TRAY’s self-service kiosks. This information will then be used to send targeted marketing campaigns to guests that can increase traffic and revenue, with no added effort from businesses.
“Self-service technology is increasingly important because it allows businesses to serve more guests and spend less on labor,” said Peter Kellis, founder and CEO of TRAY. “With this integration, we can use our self-service solution to drive repeat business through an automated process for clients using FetchRev, further simplifying operations.”
Brandon Willey, CEO of FetchRev, said, “It is our mission to be the local business owner’s best friend, and that means making it easier to drive foot traffic into their location(s) and helping them grow. That’s why we are so excited to partner with TRAY. This seamless integration brings even more value for both FetchRev and TRAY customers, so they get the best of both worlds and have an automated system that works.”
Business Briefs…
* The plight of Cloverleaf Family Bowl in Fremont, Calif., detailed in the August issue of BCM, has caught the attention of the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco. The owners of the center are fighting to save the center from being bulldozed and replaced by high-end condominiums by a Southern California developer. To view the KPIX5 report, click here: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/09/23/family-run-bowling-alley-in-danger-of-being-knocked-down/.
* A new “bowling bar” is coming to the Sangertown Square Mall in New Hartford, N.Y., next year. The facility, called PINZ, will include 10 bowling lanes, interactive and virtual games, a restaurant and a bar. It’s another example of a mall being re-imagined in reaction to the decline in brick-and-mortar retail businesses. An early 2019 opening is planned.
* Dave and Buster’s has announced its financial results for its second quarter of 2018, which ended on Aug. 5. Total revenue increased 13.7 percent to $319.2 million from $280.8 million, or 11.4 percent on a comparable week basis. This rise was mirrored in income, which grew from of $33.8 million, up from $30.4 million during the same period in 2017. Five new stores opened during the second quarter, located in Massapequa, N.Y.; Staten Island, N.Y.; Torrance, Calif.; Northridge, Calif.; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
* Beverly Bowl-O-Mat in Beverly, Mass., ended a 64-year run in March, and its contents — everything from pins to vintage Brunswick lockers to disco balls — was available in an estate sale that took place Wednesday and Thursday this week.
Other News You Can Use…
* People in St. Louis County, Mo., are hurling bowling balls at passing cars, according to KCRA3. “It was a horrible experience,” driver Teresa Seavey said. Seavey said a man walking along a roadway rolled a bowling ball underneath her vehicle. She said she thinks he wanted to carjack her. In another incident, a man said a bowling ball was hurled at his windshield. He estimates the damage to his vehicle to be about $6,000.
* Pro bowlers continue to do good things for their sport — including retired pro bowlers. The 2018 edition of Danny Wiseman’s annual Youth Scholarship Tournament, which has grown to attract bowlers from up and down the Atlantic Coast, is just around the corner. You can find details on Wiseman’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2013636928899054/.
* The Team USA women swept the doubles event Wednesday at the 2018 Pan American Bowling Confederation Women’s Championships in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and the performance ended up being about more than just the gold, silver and bronze medals. Along with the unprecedented hardware haul, the effort also earned the teammates a little redemption, a place in PABCON history and some momentum as the coveted team approached. Full report: http://www.bowlersjournal.com/team-usa-sweeps-doubles-at-2018-pabcon-womens-championships/.
* In the latest edition of The Bowlers Journal Podcast, Gold coach Susie Minshew offers a great range of instructional guidance as she discusses her new book, “The Chamber of Bowling Secrets.” Listen to the full conversation here:
http://www.bowlersjournal.com/podcast-gold-coach-susie-minshews-chamber-of-bowling-secrets/. You can read more about the book in the October issue of BJI, which includes a special instruction-focused package of features.
* The guest this week on Phantom Radio is bowling writer Jackie Wyckoff. To listen to the interview, click here: https://kegel.squarespace.com/phantomblog/2018/9/26/jackie-wyckoff-phantom-radio.
* CONTACT: Please send business news, event information, etc. to Bob Johnson at bjibob@aol.com. For breaking business news, visit bcmmag.com or bowlersjournal.com, and “Like” Bowling Center Management and Bowlers Journal International on Facebook. BJI Cyber Reports are now archived at bcmmag.com.
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