Zone Bowling is a group of

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

centers in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

currently owned and operated by The Entertainment and Education Group (TEEG). Zone Bowling has 34 locations across Australia, and 3 locations across New Zealand.

History

Originally known as AMF Bowling Australia, originating as the Australian part of the bowling division of

American Machine and Foundry American Machine and Foundry (known after 1970 as AMF, Inc.) was one of the United States' largest recreational equipment companies, with diversified products as disparate as garden equipment, atomic reactors, and yachts. The company was founde ...

(AMF). AMF began a joint venture to manufacture

pinspotter In bowling, a pinsetter or pinspotter is an automated mechanical device that sets bowling pins back in their original positions, returns bowling balls to the front of the alley, and clears fallen pins on the pin deck. Prior to the machine's ...

s in Australia in 1959 in view of the growing popularity of

ten-pin bowling Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first roll ...

in the country at the time. By 1964 1,600 bowling lanes existed in Australia, but the popularity of the sport had begun to decline. In 1985 a group of private investors in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, United States purchased the bowling division of American Machine and Foundry to form AMF Bowling Companies, Inc. (later known as AMF Bowling Worldwide). The company then bought two major Australian bowling chains to revive interest in bowling. AMF Australia expanded from 16 bowling centres to 30 by 1987, and to over 40 by 2004. AMF Bowling Worldwide sold its Australian division of to Macquarie Leisure Trust (later known as

Ardent Leisure Ardent Leisure (formerly Macquarie Leisure Trust) is an Australian-based leisure company which owns and operates a leisure portfolio of over 100 assets across Australia, New Zealand and the United States. It is most known for its operation of th ...

) in February 2005 as part of AMF's strategy at the time to re-focus on its U.S. bowling business. In December 2017, The Entertainment and Education Group (TEEG) announced that they had purchased Ardent Leisure's bowling and entertainment division for $160 million in order to merge it with its Timezone entertainment business, forming a combined entertainment group encompassing Timezone, AMF, Kingpin and Playtime. All AMF bowling centres in Australia were rebranded as Zone Bowling. In February 2019, TEEG opened its first of many dual branded venues of Zone Bowling and Timezone locations in Westfield Garden City. TEEG now has 15 dual venue locations which offer both Zone Bowling and Timezone.

References

External links

* * {{Ardent Leisure Bowling alleys Entertainment companies of Australia Ten-pin bowling in Australia Ten-pin bowling in New Zealand