As a five-time PBA Tour champion who now works on the proprietor side of the industry, Mike Fagan brings a unique perspective to COVID-19’s impact on both of those segments of the bowling world. The Director of Business Development for Triple Shift Entertainment, a chain of 10 bowling centers in Minnesota, took in nearly $900,000 in career earnings over a PBA career that spanned more than a decade, and he still has good friends who continue to battle it out in the pro ranks. In this exclusive interview, he discusses what he is hearing from those former fellow competitors about how they are handling the implications of this pandemic, financially and otherwise, how he sees Triple Shift Entertainment adjusting to the new reality that awaits the bowling-center business as centers slowly reopen across the country, and much more.

As someone who was a star pro bowler and now has experience on the
proprietor side of the industry, what has gone through your mind as you’ve
watched your industry reel from the blow this pandemic has dealt?

It has been surreal; it certainly has. We’ve seen something that looked
like it wasn’t going to be affecting us too much and then, obviously, when
March came around, things started to get worse and it was kind of a very quick
waterfall effect of states closing and following one another’s lead. Now, there’s
a new evaluation process of what our business is going to look like, and we’re
still doing that because we’re still being pushed back. I know some states are
opening, but we are under the mindset that we just want everybody to be safe.
Hopefully, we’ll get some normalcy back sooner rather than later.

Can you imagine being in the shoes of a pro bowler who makes his or
her living on the lanes amid a crisis of this magnitude?

No, no. It’s really tragic, what’s going on for those guys. We’re not
the type of sport that has guaranteed contracts, for the most part. We’re not
in a sport in which guys are making millions of dollars a year. If Major League
Baseball Players and football players don’t have savings, that’s on them; but
for professional bowlers, a lot of times they’re making average or a little
above-average what a normal, middle-class income would be. Obviously, they love
what they do, and it’s unfortunate that the picture right now is so uncertain.
Fortunately, they got through 90 percent of the first half of the season, which
included a lot of the majors, so guys had a lot of opportunity to make some
money for the year. But it’s kind of scary right now, because there is nothing
coming in for them.

What are you hearing from your former fellow competitors on tour
about how they are handling the implications of this pandemic, financially and
otherwise?

I’ve only spoken with a handful of guys, and I think it’s an
opportunity for them, because they’ve been on the road so much the first half
of the year, to come home and spend some time at home and be with their
families. From a financial perspective, I think it’s hitting them as hard as it’s
hitting everyone else in the country. It’s a tough situation, and you just hope
that the guys that have been out there who have done well in the past have made
proper precautions for a situation in which they may not have any income coming
in.

And it’s a particularly uncertain situation for international
players, because none of them can have any confident guess as to when
international travel will be permitted again this year.

Yeah, I don’t even know how to conceptualize that, because those guys,
for the most part, pretty much rely on the PBA Tour as their main competitive
ground and their main source of income — obviously, Jason , but also
the guys from Europe, Asia, and South America too. It’s scary to think about,
okay, maybe the tour can start up again, but other things are restricting them
from getting to the U.S. In my opinion — obviously, it’s not a governmental
opinion — but if people are flying, what’s the different if they’re coming from
one place versus another place?

That may be one of the points on which people are perhaps being a
little less than rational about all this.

Sure. Hopefully, we can kind of get back to normal and put this in our rear
view, because it’s something that is bringing out the best in some people but
bringing out the worst in other people, and it’s tough to watch every day some
of these things unfold that you just shake your head at, because you just can’t
believe it’s happening.

Does it get back to normal though, Mike? Do we ever see a
pre-pandemic normal either in competitive bowling or within bowling centers?

I hope so. Everything is going to adjust; I think things are going to
change when it comes to the maintenance of the facilities. The cleanliness of the
facilities is going to be at a premium, and rightfully so. If centers want to
be deemed safe for customers, they need to hold themselves to a higher
standard, especially in whatever the new normal ends up being. For professional
bowling, it’s a tough situation, because there are a lot of people within a
very small, confined space — especially from a spectator point of view. There
will have to be extra precautions for people to get back to that feeling of
normalcy, whether it’s temperature checks at the door or body-heat scanners or
some other technology. It’s going to be like what happened after 9/11, where
you had added security, added precautionary measures. I can see that becoming
essentially the new normal when entering a public facility, especially for
marquee events.

In what ways will Triple Shift Entertainment centers hold themselves
to a higher standard, as you put it, in the new environment we all are
entering?

We’re spending a lot of time right now doing some really deep cleaning
in the facilities. There’s still a lot of discussions about how to make sure
our customers are safe when they return, with things like sharing shoes and
bowling balls, making sure that tabletops are cleaned. There are different chemicals
our facility managers have been looking into that make the center an
environment in which everyone is safe.

How long have your centers in Minnesota been closed at this point?

I believe since March 17, so about six weeks now.

And what has been the financial impact of that?

We are still functioning as a company. It’s not a great situation, and
I’m not saying we have a runway forever, but we have some great partners we’re
working with on the lender side. We’re in talks with them quite often, as we
are in talks with all our financial partners to make sure we can come back from
this and still be the organization we strived to be pre-crisis.

There’s a lot of talk throughout the industry as to how many centers
will be able to withstand eight, 10, maybe 12 weeks of staying closed, of zero
revenue. What financial strategies are you guys deploying in Minnesota to make
sure you will be able to bounce back when it’s determined that you can safely
reopen?

It’s a tough situation, and every day I hear about bars or restaurants
that are not going to reopen because they have gotten to the point that the
owners or the investment team can’t sink any more money into it. I read an article
about Punch Bowl Social possibly not coming back. For us, I hope it won’t come
to that. We’re trying to manage our cost structure right now as much as we can
and push payments out. We’re confident that we’re going to make it through to
the other side of this and that we’re going to be available to run our
facilities and continue to build the vision that we have for the company.

Do you expect that someone in the industry will scoop up Punch Bowl
Social given the likelihood that it might become available at a fraction of its
pre-pandemic value?

I wouldn’t be surprised. We’ll have to see. Our business is definitely
different than that kind of a business model. We’re focused more on the league
bowling side. Those types of facilities seem to have opened up quite a bit,
different names around the country like the Main Events, Lucky Strikes, all
those different types of entertainment centers. There may not be room for all
of them in the country now that we’re on the heels of potentially an economic
crisis as well. I do think that someone will give it a shot; the name certainly
has a lot of value to it. Punch Bowl Social has been a known name in the
country for on-premise entertainment. It’s just a matter of whether what they
can get for it will pencil out.

Will the way forward for more entertainment-focused business models
like Punch Bowl Social necessarily be more arduous than centers that do not
lean quite so heavily in the direction of the entertainment-center concept?

We’re mostly on the league bowling side for sure, but we do have an entertainment
center within our chain, and it’s going to be challenging from the family
entertainment center side not so much because of people being afraid of catching
the virus — I think we’re going to be able to take precautions to make sure we’re
in a safe environment for our customers and for our staff — it’s just a matter
of what does the corporate world look like after this, and what does corporate
spending look like? A lot of the Punch Bowl Socials of the world rely on
corporate budgets and people coming in with disposable income. On the league bowling
side, we have our core league bowling base and I hope that no one out there is
going to give up their league night for financial reasons. We hope everyone out
there can still find a way to enjoy some time with friends and family at the
bowling center at the cost of maybe $20 and have a bite to eat and bowl league.
When you’re talking about those other facilities, it’s tough to get those
centers to pencil at those kinds of numbers. They’re bigger, and like I said,
we have an entertainment center within our chain, so maybe we end up pushing
more leagues into those types of facilities. There’s going to be some
adjustments that have to be made, but I think the advantage is certainly in the
league houses, in my view.

But what does league bowling look like in a post-pandemic landscape
in which you have two prevailing dynamics at play, one being germaphobia and
the other being the pressure to socially distance? Businesses in some states
that are reopening are being asked to do so at 25% capacity. How does a
league-based center have league bowling in such an environment?

We’re kind of fortunate that this is happening in the months that it’s
happening. If this is happening in the fall or winter and the majority of the bowling
world is bowling, it’s a tougher conversation. I am hoping that by the fall we’re
returning more to a sense of normalcy, but, that being said, maybe it’s just fewer
high-fives. Maybe instead of five-person teams we go down to trios so we can
spread out a little bit more. When we are talking about open play, maybe we
need to push getting your own ball instead of having to share it and touch something
someone else has touched. Maybe this is an opportunity to get a ball in the
hand of someone who has never owned a ball before.

You mention the word “opportunity,” which is something that came up
in the May issue of Bowlers Journal — yes, this pandemic has created plenty of
chaos, but on the other side of that coin, what opportunities does it present
the industry?

We’re looking at this as an opportunity to hit the reset button a
little bit because there’s a lot of opportunity to do things right now that we
just can’t do when the business is open 365 days a year. Coming back, maybe
there’s an opportunity to get balls and shoes and bags in the hands of people
who normally would just come into the center and use a house ball and house shoes.
There’s opportunity in all of this and we’ll just have to play it by ear to see
where it comes, but ultimately we just need to make sure we are a safe environment,
we’re making our customers feel safe, and taking the proper precautions so that
our staff is safe as well. I’m not a government official, but I don’t think
rushing back to open our doors is the right move. I think a lot of facilities
are looking to get back open and get people on the lanes, and they have a right
to make a living and earn business and build their business. But at the same
time, I think people have been cooped up for six weeks or more and they may not
come in; they may just want to get outside and enjoy the nice weather that’s
coming. It’s a double-edged sword, because we definitely want to open up, but
we don’t want to hire back all of these employees to stand around and then lose
even more money because you have more labor.

And what of state governments mandating that businesses operate at
reduced capacity? How do centers survive that situation?

Well, other than locations maybe like Phoenix, where, in the
summertime, it’s busier because of how hot it is outside, most places in the
U.S. are going to be at reduced capacity in the summer months. It’s hard to
make assumptions about how long this is going to last, but in the summer months,
I don’t think capacity settings are a big concern in our industry. When we get back
to the fall and the winter and we have a lot of bowlers and league bowlers who
want to use our facilities, then I think it’s a conversation that has to be had
and that we have to have a contingency plan for, because that’s a scary
situation.

How much tougher might it be to withstand those typically slower
summer months this year, given that this pandemic struck in the spring when a
lot of centers do their best business? Steve Mackie down at Tenpins & More
in Albuquerque says that March tends to be the most booming month of the year
at his center, and that is the very month in which he had to shut down.

Steve definitely has a point there. March is a tough month because it
is spring break for most of the country and you’ve got a lot of kids off from
school, so it is busy in the centers for the most part. In a lot of places
around the country, it’s not yet warm enough to be running around outside,
especially in Minnesota. So, yeah, we missed an opportunity in March as well.
We’re going to have to come together with the industry, talk about best
practices, hear what our local governments are saying, and take their advice
very seriously. But it’s an unprecedented time and I can’t say that I am going to
be able to see the future on this. I am still fairly new to this side of the
industry and learning all the time. I continue to look to the industry for
guidance, crisis or no. So far, everyone has been overwhelmingly supportive and
helpful. It’s a great community to be a part of. We’re all just taking it one
day at a time right now.

What do you think proprietors and pro bowlers alike can learn from
this experience?

professional bowlers can certainly learn from this that nothing is
guaranteed, whether it’s an injury that sidelines you or some other random
circumstance like this. It’s a tough living, but it’s also a lot of people’s
passion and their dream, so it’s hard to take that away from somebody who
really loves it. For the most part, they would probably do it for free, but
they’re being forced to not do it at all right now. I am sure there are some
guys out there that might not be able to continue to stay sharp. I know there
are other guys who do have access to facilities to practice and continue to try
to be ready when this thing blows over. You just have to try to think of it
maybe as an off-season, and you have to try to continue to have that mental
fortitude to look toward the future.

And what about proprietors? What chief lesson do you think they can
draw from this crisis?

I think the same thing; it’s one of those things where you obviously
want to be able to be insured. There are just things that are out of your
control all the time. The government has forced our locations to shut, and
there’s nothing we can do about that. It’s out of our hands. Being properly
prepared for situations like this — you buy an insurance package and you hope
you’ll never have to use it, but it’s there just in case. Just anticipating
rainy days, looking at contingency plans. Now, this is an unprecedented
situation; it’s not a situation in which bowling is not working, so as a
proprietor I’m going to try to do another business. Everything’s shut down. I
think we’re very lucky, because we’re able to work with our lenders, we’re able
to work with our equity partners, and we can hopefully come out on the other side
of this. I think flexibility in financing is a big one as well, because it’s a
matter of how strict that financing is going to be when they come knocking and
you don’t have the ability to pay.

You have expressed the view that you don’t think rushing to reopen
is the right call in this scenario. What was your reaction to Georgia Governor
Brian Kemp reopening some non-essential businesses in Georgia a week-and-a-half
ago?

It’s going to be an interesting case study for the rest of the country,
for sure. We’re keeping a very close eye on what’s going to go on in Georgia,
and we wish them the best and we hope everything works out well for them. But
we also will hope they are proceeding with caution, because you never know what
the public sentiment is going to be in their area when they just open the doors
back up. I think it’s going to come down to consumer confidence, that they can
go into any facility and just feel that they’re in a safe environment. We want
to be able to give our customers and our staff confidence that when they come
into our facilities, they’re going to have a safe environment to hopefully
forget about what’s going on in the rest of the world and leave their troubles
at the door and just enjoy themselves.

Thirty million people have filed for unemployment in the past six
weeks alone. How much discretionary income do you expect customers to have when
your centers reopen, and in what ways are your centers planning to adjust to
that new reality?

We’re going to have to ride the wave of the greater economy and
hopefully that comes back sooner rather than later, but we’re kind of at the
mercy of consumer confidence. Hopefully we’re going to be able to say, ‘Alright,
let’s hire some people back,’ and it’s more of a V-shaped recovery where it
just comes back to where it was. But these are unprecedented times, so we’re
just going to try to take it day by day and see what happens and let the
numbers be our guide while the government figures out what will be best for the
public.

What is your message to an industry that has been close to your
heart for a long time now, from your days as a junior bowler and PBA Tour
champion to now as a proprietor, as that industry navigates this crisis going
forward?

My message is we just need to come together as an industry, we need to
share best practices, and we just need to be there for each other and support
one another, whether you’re a competitive bowler or a proprietor. It’s
important that we know we’re all in this together, and we’re going to see the
other side of it. Bowling will be back. It might be a little different than it
was, but bowling definitely will survive. We know that we’re not out there
alone; we know there are other industries that are going through exactly the
same kinds of circumstances as us.