Neil Freiman

Lucky Strike is big.

It's the world's largest owner and operator of bowling centers, according to the suit, accounting for about 35% of the industry's revenue in the U.S.

It'll now be up to the court system to determine whether that Pete Weber-level dominance is an illegal monopoly.

Right.

Seems like the plaintiffs here are kind of intense bowlers and they are bemoaning how Lucky Strike has allegedly turned bowling centers.

It's not lanes, it's bowling centers into basically a nightclub atmosphere.

And they have this app that they are saying promotes gambling and they.

basically get you in and then upcharge you for food and drink, and that is their main business model.

Now, a really interesting wrinkle in this particular suit is the lawyers who are representing the plaintiffs.

It's a firm called Simonson Sussman, and they are formed from former FTC commission officials who worked under the

antitrust crusader Lina Khan.

Now, Lina Khan was during the Biden administration.

Remember, she brought tons of suits against tech companies and other companies for being monopolies.

And it seems like they are sort of taking that and moving into the private sector and now lodging their first big suit against Lucky Strike.

And now when remember when Lucky Strike in their statement said this was solely intended to generate headlines?

Well, they're saying that this is a marketing tactic by this new firm to generate headlines.

So to get their name out there.

Now, if you're in the mood to just learn more about bowling, well, there's a new HBO documentary about bowling, and it aims to put some respect on bowling's name, because for decades, we've seen, we've heard how bowling is dying, and that actually is representative of the decay of American social life.

Basically, this documentary suggests that bowling is way more popular than anyone gives it credit for.

More than 67 million people in the U.S.