COVER STORY
, the PBA’s new ith Colie Edison w e id -s ne la ts , si ), Bowlero CEO (third from left Tom Shannon
COLIEN, EDISO RO, BOWLE E H T D AN
PBA
Together transforming the game and sport for a new generation 22
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CEO
By Robert Sax “
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hat’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” is one way to look at Bowlero’s recent acquisition of the Professional Bowlers Association. The world’s largest operator of bowling centers’ bold move means more media exposure, more prize money, and more opportunities for professional bowlers, and that’s a good thing for the pros, the game, and its fans. Colie Edison, Bowlero’s chief customer officer and now CEO of the PBA as well, thinks what’s good for the PBA is also a good thing for consumers and recreational bowling. “From a high level, what we hope the PBA will do is increase the relevancy of bowling,” says Edison. “More bowling on television at a higher quality level, you’re going to have more people talking about bowling. You’re going to have more people watching bowling. And you’re going to hopefully have more Bowlero’s CEO of the PBA Colie Edison
COVER STORY people going bowling.” Bowlero claims 28 million guests annually at its centers but many of those bowl just once a year. “Bowling is this unique entity that can be all things to all people, but people just don’t do it frequently enough,” Edison says. “It’s really about reintroducing bowling back into the mindset of our consumer as something that they need to do or would want to do more than once a year. If you can increase that to two or three times, you’re talking multiple turns when it comes to revenue.” More PBA events on FOX Sports Television is the center pocket of Edison’s strategy. FOX has helped the PBA design a season that should increase viewership by presenting more bowling more often. The current season started in February 2020 and there was a PBA event every weekend that month on FOX network or FOX Sports One. The World Series of Bowling will air five nights in a row and the PBA league games and playoffs will get lots of coverage including multiple repeats.
PBA CEO Colie Edison with champ Jason Belmonte
Colie holds the bowling world in her capable hands
“FOX is really giving us a ton of opportunity. They very much support the sport and they’re big believers in the PBA,” says Edison. “We love the relationship we have with FOX and we’re excited to grow that partnership.” The PBA’s deal with FOX runs until 2022. Bowlero will bolster its FOX coverage by streaming PBA events with an eye to grabbing younger viewers who have cut the TV cord. “We also have a great partner in our streaming platform, FloBowling. It’s part of FloSports, and with Flo we’re
able to live stream the qualifying rounds of our major tournaments. This is another way that you’re going to be able to reach the deeply engaged audience.” Edison believes that increased media exposure for bowling will entice more people onto the lanes. What will keep them coming back will be the social aspect of bowling and the desire among younger consumers to combine games with socializing. “You can go to a movie theater and you’re going to be entertained. You can go to dinner and it’s going to be really social. But bowling is the only activity that combines the two and allows you to have a socialtainment experience,“ says Edison. The same idea is behind the roaring success of TopGolf, where you can enjoy golfing with friends even if you have never before held a club in your hand. League play at Bowlero is another category that should benefit from its acquisition of the PBA. Edison says that league play has already been on the rise, and indeed current industry wisdom indicates that leagues are making a comeback via such innovative offerings as short season formats. Bowlero has a number of those along with specialty offerings like the GR8 Times Bowling League and the Lousy Bowlers Club. Part of that growth is due to the efforts of an internal Bowlero team dedicated to growing league bowling. “We’re always looking to expand league bowling at our centers and continued on page 26... IBI
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COVER STORY ...continued from page 23
in fact we have grown it year over year consistently for the past five years,” says Edison. Edison refutes the idea that open play and league play are incompatible in the same location. “We have a great center in Milford, CT, where half of the house [is] able to have the lights on and [has] the perfect conditions for a league bowler. [In] the other half of the house, the lights are down, the music is on, and it’s that cosmic experience. I think what operators have been challenged with is having to think of it in black and white when the truth is there’s a lot of gray.” In theory, exciting professional bowling drives consumers to try bowling themselves, and Bowlero’s co-branding with the PBA primes them to seek out one of those 300 Bowlero centers. It’s similar to the strategy that NASCAR used to help Detroit sell cars with its “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” marketing mantra. “If you watch bowling you will want to do it,” says Edison. Furthermore there’s no need to wait until Monday, because people who watch on a Sunday morning can bowl for real on Sunday night. Once they have bowled at Bowlero, the socialtainment experience is what will convince them to come back again and again. That growing captive audience of customers is where Edison sees business opportunities that go well beyond Bowlero’s ambitious acquisition and makeover of bowling centers around the country. The most obvious benefit is the opportunity for Bowlero to sell bowling balls, shoes, and apparel to new bowlers at in-house pro shops. Sales of gear endorsed by the top PBA pros should grow as a result. “There’s such huge synergies between the center business and the television product,” says Edison. Those include PBA sponsorship deals that could include allowing sponsors to offer information about their products at kiosks in Bowlero’s centers. Edison wants to expand the PBA’s official sponsorship deals to include such non-endemic products as the official PBA insurance agency, beer, or car. It’s been a successful move for other pro sports leagues, like the NFL and NBA, and could work well for the PBA, too. The next level of opportunity is represented by the thousands of video screens above the lanes in Bowlero centers, which customers spend one to three hours per visit looking at. “If [a sponsor] has assets or commercials that they might not be able to play because of cord-cutting on cable television, and they want a new audience for those spots, they can run them on our TVs,” says Edison. “For the first time ever we are giving advertisers and sponsors the potential to buy media within our four walls.” In addition to PBA broadcasts, Bowlero has also developed the expertise to generate its own programming for distribution on everything from in-center monitors to customers’ handheld devices. Edison and her team have learned a lot 26
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COVER STORY about program development and production over the last couple of years by making their own shows. The first was its “Live on the Lanes” limited series, a digital-age “Bowling for Dollars” that allowed customers watching online to win cash based on the accomplishments of the show’s competing amateur bowlers. Next came the Bowlero Elite Series, a pro-am tournament series that allowed talented bowlers from Bowlero’s inhouse leagues to go head-to-head with such top pros as Jason Belmonte and Shannon O’Keefe for $1,000,000 in total prize money. NBC Sports Network ran three of the tournaments in 2019. PBA CEO Colie Edison with Bowlero CEO Tom Shannon during a media blitz “I think [our shows] were immensely helpful in helping us understand production around bowling,” says Edison, “for my team to understand the opportunities with production, filming on the lanes, and ways to push out a media message. They were great preps for what we were stepping up to do.” Edison also believes Bowlero can carve out a portion of the booming esports category for bowling. To whet fans’ appetites, there is the PBA’s mobile game PBA Bowling Challenge that has been downloaded almost 28 million times and PBA Pro Bowling for console play on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam. Bowlero is taking gaming a big step further by entering into a first-of-itskind mobile esports partnership with UK-based game producer Skillz to launch a mobile game called Strike! By Bowlero. The game merges the physical and digital worlds, extending the Bowlero bowling experience beyond physical locations while bringing sponsored esports tournaments to the Bowlero bowling centers. Supported by a nationwide marketing effort, Bowlero will invite its customers to download Strike! and compete for prizes and bonuses at its Colie poses on the lanes for a PBA tournament aired on FOX centers, creating a fun and Sports Colie and Tom Clark, PBA commissioner, record a interactive physical-to-digital segment on FloBowling experience for bowlers on and sounds like a modern media business driven by off the lanes. a high-profile consumer brand. That could be The PBA, original programming, esports competition, and in-house ad very good for Bowlero, the PBA, and everyone network could result in making what Edison refers to as Bowlero Sports and else in bowling. ❖ Entertainment the first media company in bowling. She defines that as a company that is creating, producing, or distributing content to different audiences. “It’s really a multidimensional, multichannel opportunity. And it’s how we fit really nicely in that media space,” Edison says. “We’re able to distribute Robert Sax is a writer and PR consultant in Los Angeles. He grew up in Toronto, Canada, content because we’re going to be able to put an advertiser’s messaging the home of five-pin bowling. on our screens, in our emails, on our digital [content] and so I think that’s a really unique place that no one else in our industry can really say they are.” While that may not sound like your father’s bowling industry, it sure 28
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