Bowling was once the most popular sport in the United States, but interest began to wane in the late 1980s and the sport and its practitioners started to gain a negative reputation. The development of a stereotype can be traced back to the advent of television in the 1950s when the bowler was often represented as an admittedly overweight and lazy but nevertheless lovable family man. At the end of the 90s, when interest in the sport was at its lowest, this stereotype would be transformed into an alcoholic and lonely anti-hero, as evidenced by the films KingPin and The Big Lebowski. This paper seeks to examine what role brands have played in shaping this negative imagethrough product placement. The results of the analysis show that unless two brands are in juxtaposition, they do not add to the stereotypical image of the characters. Instead, it is the product that the brand represents that reinforces the stereotype.