Bowlers Journal At 100 By Mort Luby Jr. (Part 7 in a 12-Part Series)
RIDING THE CREST OF BOWLING’S BOOM
AS THE INDUSTRY BOOMED in the late 1950s and early ’60s — largely because of widespread sales of automatic pinsetting machines and changing public perceptions about bowling — Bowlers Journal really fl ourished.
wick sold its machines outright, likewise bally- hooing this “advantage” in elaborate advertising campaigns. The maga- zine’s page count grew steadily as bowling com- panies became more
A
prosperous. New suppliers emerged, old ones ex- panded and non-bowling companies tried to catch a piece of the action.
The total of U.S. bowling lanes
exploded from 65,000 in 1957 to nearly 160,000 in 1962. Bowling was the hottest
MF, which leased machines to proprietors, touted its business model in many two-page spreads. Bruns-
industry in America. I wrote a piece for the Associated Press national wire which pointed out that AMF and Brunswick had the greatest increments of all stocks on the New York Exchange. Bowling TV shows enjoyed huge audiences.
I admit that it was pretty easy to be a publishing
Mort Luby Jr.
genius in this environment. As advertising revenues poured in, the size of the magazine increased and we ran a lot more photos and artwork. I studied the major magazines of that era — particularly Life and Look —
and tried to emulate their look and feel. Akron attorney Eddie Elias founded the Professional Bowlers Assn. in 1958,
Bowling’s “bust” began in 1963, which kept the 50th anniversary issue of The National Bowlers Journal and Billiard Revue to a modest 86 pages.
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May 2013
EVERYTHING BOWLING, ALL THE TIME
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