Zone Bowling is a group of

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

centers in Australia and New Zealand currently owned and operated by The Entertainment and Education Group (TEEG). Zone Bowling has 34 locations across Australia, and three 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. History The company wa ...

(AMF). AMF began a joint venture to manufacture pinspotters in Australia in 1959 in view of the growing popularity of

ten-pin bowling Tenpin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler bowling form, rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned Tetractys, evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The goal is to knock down all ten Bowlin ...

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 Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

, 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 Coast Entertainment Holdings Limited (formerly Ardent Leisure Group and Macquarie Leisure Trust) is an Australian leisure company. It is most known for its operation of the Dreamworld (Australia), Dreamworld theme park and the WhiteWater World w ...

) 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