This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, August, 2022
Bowling “on TV” is one of the most important topics of discussion and desire within the highest levels of the sport. If you’re a new subscriber to this publication, you should send a note to the editor and inquire about purchasing the most recent 78 back issues, in which you’ll find several in-depth discussions in this very column of why bowling on TV is so important.
Or, you can read the following quick summary: bowling on TV generally means bowlers are competing for championships and large paychecks along with notoriety, experience under the non-heat-emitting hot lights and thrill of bowling in front of a raucous crowd.
But there’s another aspect of bowling on TV we rarely discuss: television commercials. Bowling is often involved in many different types of media, but lately, it seems more prevalent than ever in advertising.
The camera shots are always quick, usually focusing on a group of extraordinarily happy revelers basking in the thrill of a Brooklyn strike that sweeps the 4-7-8 late, and invariably used as an example of what a carefree life anyone who uses the advertised product can have.
Lately, a lot of those drug commercials featuring disclaimers as long as Infinite Jest have been using bowling stock footage to prove that whatever they’re selling—after talking to your doctor, of course—will have you psoriasis-, UC- and allergy-free on the lanes with six of your closest friends surrounding you at the foul line while you gleefully grin at your pink bowling ball heading straight for the 10-pin but then somehow connecting between the 1 and 2 for the afore-mentioned Brooklyn. These drugs apparently also make you a very talented bowler or magician or both, which may be considered side effects and thus will be listed by the narrator reciting all the other horrifying possibilities in a strangely jovial tone.
It’s not just drug commercials. Sometimes people are happy on the lanes because of all the money they saved on car insurance or because they drank the correct soda that afternoon or because they figured out how to avoid leaving the house with a trillion subscription services that is appropriately celebrated by leaving the house to roll a few.
Why? Because bowling is fun and recognizable. Everyone in mainstream society knows this (note: mainstream society excludes competitive bowlers). Advertisers know that the general audience can identify with the fun of rolling plastic balls down the lanes with friends, so of course it’s the perfect activity to showcase when attempting to explain the incredible effects of whatever product is being hawked.
All the strikes are Brooklyn. All the balls are house balls. All the rules are shunned. A quick search on stock-footage dealer Pond5’s website shows 7,177 results for “bowling,” which is coincidentally the same number of qualifying games that will be required of competitors in the two 2023 U.S. Open events. Watch a few of these stock videos and bask in the ignorance of the footage creators who think a strike is a strike and a ball is a ball and a spade is a spade. And yet that type of footage is what advertisers buy (or produce themselves) to show the fun of their products.
This ignorance is likely costing them billions of dollars. Why don’t these drug ads cut from the other generic happiness shots—a woman frolicking in a bright meadow, a couple smiling at each other while walking on the sidewalk, a beaming child mesmerized by a floating bubble—to some guy, his frustration increasing over the course of several frames, really grinding to find the right line to the pocket on a flat oil pattern, finally striking late in the game but unable to put a double up, but keeping his head in the game and making his spares to allow him to eek out a 180-178 victory? That would move some merchandise.