152
Private Equity–Backed Firm Bowlero Is Ruining Bowling (jacobin.com)
submitted 5 months ago by psychothumbs@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
all 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 69 points 5 months ago

TLDR; Bowlero buys up local lanes and either closes them or renovates them into a new Bowlero. Then they cheap out at every expense, raise prices, and push expensive drinks and food.

They're clearly pushing for a monopoly like all these top big companies are doing.

The article spends way too long telling you about "Big Mike" and trying to get you to sympathize with their characters instead of using real interviewees as an example.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 31 points 5 months ago

TLDR; Bowlero buys up local lanes and either closes them or renovates them into a new Bowlero. Then they cheap out at every expense, raise prices, and push expensive drinks and food.

That's private equity for you.

[-] ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago

This is literally the playbook for all companies that are run by private equity firms

[-] Flying_Hellfish@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

They just bought up the largest waterpark in Illinois..... yep, a waterpark.

The last article I read on it said they had big ideas to increase profit at the waterpark and it was something the old owners never thought of, which is to start selling alcohol. I can't imagine how much a watered down margarita at a waterpark is going to cost.

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 15 points 5 months ago

Pretty sure the previous owners didn't sell alcohol to avoid drunk situations around drowning hazards and children.

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 12 points 5 months ago

You can't imagine how excited I am to take my kids to a water park for a bunch of drunken 30 year olds to hit on them or loudly brag about fucking Lois in HR in graphic detail or whatever else sober people keep to themselves when they are around kids.

[-] Magnetron@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 months ago

More than a few lives

[-] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

A couple of lives at least.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 67 points 5 months ago

Is there anything private equity hasn't made objectively worse?

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 31 points 5 months ago

No, Private Equity makes things worse by definition. The incentives of a PE firm are misaligned with building a healthy business that builds consumer trust and treats employees well - if your company is acquired by PE you can expect worse working conditions, tighter deadlines or metrics, worse compensation... and having to deal with much angrier clients.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

You know, the funny thing is that nominally, the point of PE is to take a struggling asset, get it back on its feet, and sell it for more than you bought it for. It's flipping for businesses. That honestly doesn't sound bad, it sounds like probably a good thing when you put it like that. IRL, though, it just ends up being vulture capital all the way down.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 13 points 5 months ago

Yea, I'd saying that a company seeking outside investors or trying to bring on managers or consultants... these aren't inherently bad things - it's just that in practice it's fucking awful.

In our modern capitalist system the flow diagram is basically: team/founder starts a company, company does well and builds a customer base, team/founder cash out, PE/profit targets force under investment in company health, company gets worse, new team/founder outcompetes... though a huge problem at the moment is that having a billion dollar slush fund can really draw out being outcompeted i.e. Uber/literally anything in silicon valley.

[-] DrFuggles@feddit.de 5 points 5 months ago

Well yeah but also no. I feel like Sam from Wendover went over this quite well recently: https://youtu.be/XK8hpxR_r2Y

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 27 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Another industry becoming enshitified. I really wish there was something we, the people, could do about this, because this really fucking sucks. Average people won't care though, because shiny.

[-] Jode@midwest.social 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I Dunno man I think this is really one where just not going to bowlero would do the trick. Maybe it's different because I'm in the midwest, but there are plenty of places way better and cheaper than bowlero and I think the local populous knows. Because the bowlero by me is only ever full if a company is doing an event there. Otherwise the general consensus is "wtf no I don't want to go to the loud dark bowling alley with 9 dollar drinks and microwave wings"

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago

Sure, but the article was saying they're on an acquisition frenzy, scooping up any and every alley they can. Most smaller cities only have maybe one alley is the point, where Bowlero has an effective monopoly.

[-] Jode@midwest.social 3 points 5 months ago

Well let's hope this ticketmaster shit the government is doing has knock on effects

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

I'm with ya. At the same time, we really need some systemic changes to stop Wall Street's penchant for fucking everything up.

[-] TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

But you will, because the rest will close eventually. It's a long game. The mom and pops won't survive forever.

[-] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Will what? I almost never go bowling anymore because it's gotten so expensive. Didn't even start with Bowlero, I don't think. They were just another company that came in and made the affordable places more expensive.

If it weren't for the bowling league IDK if the place would be all that busy.

[-] eatfudd@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

Almost every single bowling alley near me is either bowlero, bowl america, or amf bowling. They're all owned by bowlero. It sucks

[-] Beetlejuice001@lemmy.wtf 1 points 5 months ago

The AppleBee level of service

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

https://historicseattle.org/r-i-p-sunset-bowl-and-the-future-of-other-bowling-alleys-what-would-the-dude-think/

Different story, different participants, same sadness

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 12 points 5 months ago

corpos are really ruining everything huh

[-] Deadeyegai@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

And thus the further enshitification of things continues along....

[-] halferect@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

It's too bad because bowling is fun even when you suck at it.

[-] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Bowling in general has gotten much more expensive because so many places love booking lanes per hour per person. And they are all very expensive. Makes the $4-$5 per game places of just a decade or so ago look dirt cheap in comparison.

this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
152 points (98.1% liked)

News

23301 readers
1151 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world