Landmark Lanes closed.
For decades, it hosted PBA Tour stops. Legends and champions walked those floors and used the same ball returns as everyone else. It turned out a generation of bowlers in Peoria. Then in September 2025 the building went dark, like a lot of centers have. The sport shrinks every time that happens.
Bowling Doesn’t Grow Back on Its Own
Now it’s reopening as Landmark Community Center, under new operators rebuilding it from the ground up. That’s what got us involved.
Once the buildings disappear, bowling doesn’t grow back on its own. Somebody has to put real resources behind bringing them back, or the sport keeps shrinking one closed center at a time.
SPARE/WARE is self-funded, bootstrapped, and tight on cash. We couldn’t invest directly. If we could, we would.
So we did what we know how to do, and do well. We designed one hell of a shirt, with meaning and intention behind every element, from the color of the shirt itself to the details on the back. Before we ever sat down to design it, we’d already decided that 100% of the proceeds would go to the people doing that work. None of it comes back to us.
That’s what SPARE/WARE stands for: the sport, and the people pouring everything they have into growing it.
“Is This Going to Do Anything?”
At a pop-up a couple of months ago, an old-timer who knew the center well looked at that shirt and asked what nobody else would say out loud.
“You really think this is going to do anything? Is this going to make a splash in the money they need to become operational?”
Fair question. Honest answer.
“Realistically, it’ll be a drop in the bucket,” I told him. “But at least I know I’m trying.”
What Fifty Shirts Can and Can’t Do
We’ve sold about 50 of these shirts. Fifty shirts isn’t a renovation budget. It doesn’t resurface lanes, replace a roof, or cover a week of payroll in 2026.
What it does is put the name back in front of people. It told people who had no idea that one of the best-known stops in televised bowling in the ’80s and ’90s had closed, and had been closed for a while. It’s a stranger at a farmers market asking who the three legends hoisting trophies on the back of the shirt are. It’s a conversation the center otherwise wouldn’t have had.
That’s not nothing. It’s also not enough, and we’re not going to pretend it is.
Where Is the Rest of the Industry?
Here’s the part we can’t get past. We’re the smallest brand in the sport, and as far as we can tell, we’re the only one putting real money where our mouth is.
This isn’t a marketing stunt. We’re not chasing publicity off t-shirts and hoodies. We’re doing it so the sport can do what everyone says they want it to do: grow. When the sport grows, every brand grows with it, whoever they are and whatever they sell. Everyone shares in that. Not everyone is sharing in the effort.
So it’s worth asking. Where are the ball manufacturers? The shirt brands, the bag companies, the accessory lines? Every one of them profits from bowling staying alive. These companies run product lines that exist only because this sport exists, with sponsorship budgets, R&D budgets, and marketing budgets. Not one of them has shown up for a building that used to host the very thing that makes their business possible, let alone profitable.
We’re not saying this to start a fight. We’re saying it because somebody should be asking, so we are.
A sport doesn’t grow because a brand mentions it in a press release. It grows when someone puts money in when it’s inconvenient, unprofitable, and slow. It grows when brands come together to invest in the thing they exist to serve.
The Shirt Is No Longer Available
100% of the proceeds went to Landmark, the same as they did for the first one sold. The shirt is no longer available, but the need hasn’t gone anywhere. If this is a cause worth putting your money behind, it still is. If not, that’s fine too. We keep going either way.
Keep reading: Bowling Built Community First · Mission Oriented: why the Youth Development Fund exists
