Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Is Las Vegas becoming the competitive bowling capital of the world?

South Point Bowling

Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.com

The 90,000-square-foot South Point Bowling Plaza features 60 lanes, a 360-seat viewing area and two 167-foot, state-of-the-art digital displays.

Can Las Vegas be the competitive bowling capital of the world?

The South Point is trying to make it happen.

Eight months ahead of schedule, the off-Strip hotel rolled out a new $35 million bowling tournament center on Thursday, adding to the long list of bowling facilities inside casinos around the valley.

“All the casinos in town that have bowling centers, there’s a reason: It’s a popular sport, anyone can do it and it’s also a great demographic,” said South Point general manager Ryan Growney. “(Bowlers) like to drink beer, they like to have a good time, they like to gamble — so it’s a demographic that casinos are going to obviously try to reach out to. We just went one step further to reach that next level of tournament bowlers.”

The 90,000 square-foot bowling facility has 60 lanes and a 360-seat viewing area. And that’s just the second level — on the first floor, the South Point also built two new horse showing facilities to expand its equestrian offerings.

Growney said the hotel’s equestrian business was so strong that it needed additional arenas right away. So the hotel pushed to get that up and running as soon as possible, allowing the whole project to be completed ahead of schedule, he said.

Whereas other bowling spots are usually open to the general public — including the South Point’s original bowling area — this one is only for tournaments. Per a 12-year deal with the United States Bowling Congress, Las Vegas Events and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the facility will regularly host major bowling championships.

Future events will be much more extensive than the Professional Bowlers Association World Series of Bowling that will break in the center this weekend. During the USBC open championships, Growney said the center should see hundreds of bowlers pass through multiple times a day, seven days a week for several months.

In the open championship hosted by the USBC — bowling’s governing body and membership organization — thousands of players compete for a share of more than $5 million in prize money. They can compete as teams, doubles, singles and in an all-events competition.

USBC open championships, which have been held in Las Vegas before, are open to bowlers with a membership and are separated into divisions based on average score. The professional association events, on the other hand, are only open to the most skilled players.

Las Vegas has already seen how the bowling championships can affect the local economy. In 2009, the Cashman Center held the USBC Open Championship, which brought more than 17,000 teams and an estimated 292,750 travelers. The nongaming economic impact of the championship, held from February through July, was around $120 million.

So tourism officials sought a way to make the tournament a consistent source of economic activity, and South Point owner Michael Gaughan agreed to build the tournament facility.

Now that same championship is scheduled to happen at the South Point bowling center five times between 2017 and 2027. The USBC Women’s Championship, which also lasts for several months, is slated to be held four times at the South Point between 2016 and 2026.

The championships will bring so many people that the South Point says it can only provide rooms for about 27 percent of the expected visitors. That leaves the remaining 73 percent up for grabs by other properties in the valley.

And even when large-scale championships are not underway at the bowling center, the South Point expects a steady stream of business. According to Growney, the facility is already booked for more than 100 days in 2015, 210 days in 2016 and 310 days in 2017.

Ninety percent of those bookings, he said, is new business that has not been held at the hotel’s original bowling area. That facility will remain open for, as Growney put it, “casual, everyday, let’s-just-come-out-and-have-a-great-time bowlers.”

USBC executive director Chad Murphy, who bowled his first tournament in Las Vegas in 1990, said the city is “exceptional” for bowling.

“There’s a long, storied history here — both amateur and pro alike,” he said. “We’ve kind of gravitated to these areas in some cases just because of the facilities that Vegas offers. Not to mention, it’s a vacation destination for folks, so our consumers like coming here.”

Asked whether the South Point’s facility makes Las Vegas the bowling capital, Murphy said he can’t say yet but “it looks like it’s going to be.”

And if Las Vegas is not atop the cities that cater to competitive bowling, Nevada as a state very well might be. Reno opened its massive National Bowling Stadium in 1995, and it’s a regular host of the USBC championships.

In fact, because of the South Point’s new facility opening up, Las Vegas and Reno will be the most regular hosts of the open championships for the foreseeable future. The PBA World Series of Bowling is already in its fifth consecutive year at the South Point — players used the hotel’s existing bowling area before the new facility was built.

Dave Wodka, a professional bowler and Henderson resident who’s lived in the Las Vegas area since 1981, was optimistic that the city will be considered the premier location for competitive bowlers.

“I think it’s already kind of become that, but this is just going to even facilitate that more,” he said. “At some point, every major tournament

is at least going to make a trip to this facility. It may not be every year, but they’re going to at least come here once.”

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