No TV For The NBL
Bowling was popular on television at the time; NBC carried "Championship Bowling", while other local and national programs included "Make That Spare", "Bowling for Dollars", and "Celebrity Bowling." The NBL tried to place its matches on ABC, but that network also chose the PBA. (ABC televised PBA matches on the Saturday afternoon "Pro Bowlers Tour" from 1961-97; the program later aired on CBS and is now seen on ESPN.)
Without a television contract, the NBL had to rely on a strong gate. Using mostly smaller arenas and converted theatres (Dallas and Detroit were the only teams that played in actual bowling alleys), the league created "arena style bowling", using four to six lanes with bleachers that held anywhere from 1,150 to 3,250 people; this setup is now used today in the PBA. Kansas City's Midland and Omaha's Paramount were famous movie theaters that were transformed into NBL arenas. Some had spotlighted lanes, scoreboards, semicircular-pattern seats, a press box, concessions stands, and dressing rooms.
The NBL's first match was New York at Dallas, held October 12, 1961. The Dallas Broncos owner was oilman J. Curtis Sanford, who had come up with the idea of football's Cotton Bowl in 1937. He poured millions into his team, building the Bronco Bowl, a seventy-two-lane alley that made it one of the largest bowling centers in the country at the time. The Broncos' home matches were located in a special section that featured six lanes and 18 rows of seats in a semicircle; there was even a seven-piece jazz band to entertain between games. Dallas won their opener, 22-2, but the Broncos drew just 2,000 fans on opening night (well short of a sellout), and attendance got worse from there. (The lanes were eventually removed from the Bronco Bowl and it became a popular music venue for such acts as Bob Dylan, U2 and Bruce Springsteen before closing in 2003.)
Other teams also got off to less-than-promising starts. Jesse Weingart, a co-owner of the original New York team, had his franchise rights terminated in April 1961 and he threatened to sue the league. The new owners, unable to find a place to play in the Big Apple, wound up remaking a movie theatre in distant Totowa, New Jersey, some twenty miles from Manhattan; the Gladiators home opener on October 17 drew just 500 fans. Meanwhile, the San Antonio Cavaliers could not find a home arena at all and was forced to roll all its matches on the road.
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