FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 16th, 2007

SPORTS RESEARCH BOMBSHELL: A MORE ENLIGHTENED, TOLERANT AND PERMISSIVE AMERICA!

* * *
Sports Participation Trends Parallel Evolution of Larger Society

CORTLANDT MANOR, N.Y. -- The idea of a more tolerant and permissive society seems outrageously counterintuitive in 2007 -- especially through the prism of anger, incivility and aggressive behavior that reflect our daily frustrations. But through a different lens, another image -- one of the 1960's Cultural Revolution fast-forwarded to the present -- reveals a more tolerant and humanistic nation. The rules of society -- written and unwritten -- are being transformed.

Harvey Lauer, founder and president of American Sports Data, Inc. (www.americansportsdata.com) -- the most widely quoted and definitive source of sports and fitness participation data in the U.S. -- has just explicated this premise in a new book. Based on primary research in the service of more than 200 corporate, governmental, media and sports organizations over the past quarter-century, The New Americans: Defining Ourselves through Sports and Fitness Participation, is a seminal collection of 33 articles, interviews and essays written by and about Mr. Lauer. He concludes that after religion, not only is sport the second most powerful force in American culture -- it is also a precision index of changing values and behavioral norms.

In a startling introduction to this Bible of sports participation research, Lauer identifies the surprising but unifying theme linking sports participation and social analysis: a new social morality, reflected not only in American cultural change, but also in sports participation.

Forty or fifty years ago, many more people than today smoked cigarettes in the U.S., and a far greater proportion of non-smokers were forced to inhale secondary smoke. Most women didn't work outside the home, open interracial dating was rare, gay marriage unheard of. Anti-gun legislation, affirmative action and Medicare were non-existent. The disabled had few special conveniences, and we certainly didn't take our daughters to work -- much less our dogs. The air we breathed was arguably less clean, and -- though an unrelated and rarely-mentioned tidbit of social history -- we even bathed less frequently than is the present custom. Physical Fitness would be the gift of a distant future.

That future is today -- a time when we care more about people's rights, our environment, our bodies, our relationships, and are less beholden to authority and formality in all its guises.

Hunting and Fishing once reigned supreme; but today, the "Blood" sports are in severe decline. From 1987 to 2004, the number of Hunters in the U.S. declined by 40%, while "bloodless" shooting sports such as Sporting Clays and Paintball fare better. We also smoke less, (a decline of about a third in two decades), exercise more (but not enough), have more female sports participants, safer sports rules, and better equipment. But even as we exercise more -- 80% of all athletic shoes and apparel never witness perspiration in a new casual world that was unthinkable a half-century ago.

Ironically, even the phenomena of "fan violence" in professional sports and Little League "misbehavior" (the latter a much-exaggerated notion, according to ASD) are themselves manifestations of our new permissive culture. "Forty or fifty years ago" says Lauer, "we were far more respectful of authority figures -- be they politicians, priests, baseball coaches or celebrity athletes."

In a bygone era, women who lifted weights invited a spate of gender-specific epithets; but for many of today's men, toned muscles are an ideal of feminine attractiveness. From 1987 - 2005, the number of women who trained with free weights tripled from 7.4 million to 22.6 million.

It is safe to deduce that in the 1950's or 1960's, few people exercised; baseline fitness-consciousness was just above zero. Today, 20% of the U.S. population works out on a regular basis, while an additional 60%+ can be classified as what Lauer calls "Consciousness III" -- those persuaded of physical fitness, but who by their own admission, don't get enough exercise. As behavior lags enlightened attitudes, 4 out of 5 adult Americans are true believers in exercise and fitness.

But we also eat more and paradoxically, have grown obese. The average adult female weighs 165 pounds -- a development that has more to do with a failure of self-discipline than enlightened values. Men tip the scales at well over 190 pounds, and the proportion of overweight children has quadrupled since the 1960's.

If in the 1950's or 1960's one of our grandmothers looked out the kitchen window and saw a gray-haired man running through the streets in his underwear, she had one option -- to call the police! Her reaction would have been a proper civic response to a sight that at best, seemed faintly deviant. Today, that phone call would provoke a class-action by thousands of older fitness aficionados. Indeed, from 1987 - 2005 health club membership among people over 55 zoomed by 422%.

These are just a few examples of how U.S. sports participation has traced American cultural history in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Tackling a comprehensive array of sports participation topics which include the Fitness Revolution, Youth Development, Team Sports, Generation Y, Obesity, Sports Injuries, Health Club Trends, Psychological Stress, Outdoors pursuits, research methodology and much more, Lauer has fashioned a work that does double-duty as a reference manual for marketing professionals and as the framework of an educational curriculum. It is also a breakthrough in sports sociology.

For more information on The New Americans: Defining Ourselves through Sports and Fitness Participation, log on to www.amazon.com. (If out of stock, call 914-461-3271)