What Do Pro Bowlers Do with Old Balls? Resell, Recycle, Repeat

Pro and competitive bowlers upgrade equipment frequently to pursue that ever-elusive perfect 300 game. This churn means regularly cycling dozens of bowling balls per year to secondhand buyers or recycling plants.

In short, the life cycle of pro bowling gear is:

Get shiny new ball → Roll for a few tournaments → Resurface or offload → Repeat

Let‘s analyze what really happens to those retired balls along with other insider equipment intel from the lanes!

Why Pros Are Always Trying New Bowling Balls

As a passionate bowler myself, part of the thrill comes from testing the latest gear innovations and tinkering with new toys. The cutting-edge tech improves your score, but also just feels badass rolling a glowing spectacle of a ball!

Beyond the appeal of novelty equipment, competitive bowlers rely on fresh balls to stay atop leaderboards both for leverage and psychology:

Matching evolving lane conditions

Oil patterns fluctuate across tournaments and venues. The right reactive resin ball can hook or hold according to subtle environment factors only the keen pro notices subconsciously.

Optimized for their style

Modern bowling balls offer so many customizable specs around weight blocks, covers, finishes, and cores. Brands produce equipment with certain pros in mind.

Precision and consistency

At the professional level, every pin matters. New gear‘s predictability and accuracy provides an edge to hit those narrow pockets.

Mental confidence

Stepping to the line with cutting-edge gear boosts confidence and bravado critical for competing under pressure. That special edition ball might be 5% better…but feels 50% better!

Now that we‘ve explored the incentives around constant upgrades, next let‘s crunch the actual cycling numbers.

Just How Often Do Pros Upgrade Bowling Balls?

Based on ball release trends and pro interviews, competitive bowlers acquire 5-15 new bowling balls per year from sponsors. Of course, that shuffling also removes about the same count from their active rotation.

Here is a breakdown of the bowling ball turnover data among different pro segments:

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As you can see, elite professionals obtain around a dozen freshly-minted bowling balls every year to integrate into tournaments and competitions.

In the next sections, we‘ll break down exactly what happens to last season‘s or last month‘s ball models…

Common Fate of Retired Bowling Balls

When competitive players phase balls out of their rotation, a few possibilities emerge. Listed from most to least common:

Resale Market

The secondhand bowling equipment market is massive, ranging from pro shops to eBay. Retired pro gear fetches higher-than-normal resale value thanks to prestige. Even recreational bowlers get in on the resale market to fund their next fancy ball.

I‘ll often buy 3-4 used balls per year to expand my personal arsenal on a budget!

Storage

Pros hold onto certain balls for sentimental value or niche situations less common today like sport shots. But storage space fills up fast when you‘re churning 10+ balls per year. Eventually overflow gets removed.

Donations

For equipment not eligible for resale, many pro bowlers and regional tournaments donate to youth bowling programs. Kids get exposure to quality gear while pros give back to the community.

Landfills & Recycling

When donate routes dry up and storage overflows, the remaining equipment gets trashed or recycled. Specific recycling programs focus on bowling balls and bowling shoes.

Based on industry insider estimates, only 25% of retired bowling balls avoid the landfill through resale, donations, or recycling. So the majority still end up as waste.

Next let‘s explore what recycling looks like for balls and shoes…

The Journey of a Bowling Ball in Recycling

Even with regular turnover, most individual pros don‘t produce enough waste equipment alone to justify a recycling run. But some regional tournaments and local waste management groups have established bowling ball recycling initiatives. This process brings new life to tons of old gear annually.

Collection

Balls get collected in bulk either via specialized community recycling drives or pro shop round-ups.

Transportation

Once enough used equipment gathers, it gets transported to a dedicated recycling plant with shredders and separations capable of handling bowling balls.

Shredding & Separating

Powerful metal shredders first rip the balls into smaller chunks. Then the materials get analyzed and divided up based on composition and resilience.

Melting & Remolding

The various rubberized, plastic, resin, polyester, and urethane materials melt down for reuse. They transform into consumer goods or construction materials like speed bumps, tiles, and outdoor deck boards.

So while most retired bowling balls won‘t end up in a hall of fame, a quarter of them do enjoy an encore life through recycling and reuse programs.

Initiatives Encouraging Bowling Sustainability

Between manufacturing equipment, operating centers, and disposing waste, bowling alleys and tournaments generate substantial environmental footprint.

But we‘re seeing more consciousness around sustainability from brands and leagues. For example:

• Storm Bowling challenges retail partners to uphold eco-standards on recycling and energy use
• The United States Bowling Congress urges individual bowlers to reuse gear when possible
• Brunswick runs sustainability programs on water conservation and solar power
• Nonprofits like Balls for Bucks raise money via ball recycling

On the consumer side, bowlers can adopt greener habits like using less harsh cleaners, buying eco-balls, and participating in resale markets. Or you can mail equipment directly to recycling centers instead of tossing.

Through awareness and advancing technology, the sport as whole makes incremental improvements benefitting communities and the planet.

The Ball Life Cycle Comes Full Circle

And there we have it – the full life cycle of a pro bowler‘s ball arsenal. From shiny new release model to eventual storage, resale, donation, or recycling, competitive balls endure a life in the fast lane!

This insider‘s guide explored the incentivizes around constant pro upgrades along with illuminating data on yearly ball turnover totals. We also tracked hypothetical retired ball journeys through possible second acts.

Hope you enjoyed this special glimpse into the rapid churn of elite bowling equipment! Whether you bowl for sport or just for fun, keeping gear in circulation is a win-win for all skill levels.

Now quick – go call your local pro shop to snag an awesome limited edition ball on the secondhand market!