Hobbies and recreation organizations (HMOs)
Definition Leisure-time activities and pastimes
Americans engaged in a wide variety of leisure-time pur-
suits during the 1980’s, finding many different ways to
spend their increased disposable income, even as the amount
of leisure time available to them shrank rapidly.
When the 1980’s began, the Iran hostage crisis was
two months old, and memories of the Vietnam War
were fading. With the election of Ronald Reagan as
president and his promise of “Morning in America,”
Americans were ready to find new means of escape
from their work schedules. In 1980, total personal
expenditures for recreation were $149 billion; by
1989, that figure rose to $250 billion. Overall, there
was a shift in the number of hours worked, from 40.6
hours per week in 1973 to 48.4 hours per week, not
including unpaid overtime hours and second jobs
that most Americans held or were required to per-
form. This increase in work hours generated more
income, and Americans embarked on a new spend-
ing spree, many buying on credit. A large portion of
the consumer market was made up of teenagers and
college students.
Sports Throughout the decade, sports and games
continued as the most popular American recrea-
tional activities. The major organized team sports—
baseball, basketball, football—represented oppor-
tunities both for participation and for spectatorship.
In addition, sporting events that centered around
gambling—such as horse racing, dog racing, and jai
alai—achieved some popularity. Indeed, gambling
became one of the most common forms of enter-
tainment outside the home, and offtrack betting
centers sprung up in which gamblers could bet on
events taking place around the country, following
them all via live television broadcasts. The most pop-
ular form of gambling took place at gaming casinos,
which expanded well beyond Las Vegas and included
riverboats. These modern duplicates of nineteenth
century showboats were revived along the nation’s
waterways to exploit the ability of water vessels to
ignore many antigambling statutes.
In 1985, annual spectatorship at all professional
sporting events reached 223.2 million. Baseball re-
corded an all-time high of 47.7 million spectators, a
figure that further increased to 56.8 million by 1992.
Professional basketball attendance also rose from
11.5 million spectators in 1985 to 18.6 million in- Annual college basketball attendance re-
mained steady at 28.7 million for men’s teams, but
attendance at women’s college basketball games ex-
perienced an impressive increase from 2 million in
1985 to 3.4 million in 1992. Fans attending profes-
sional hockey games in 1985 numbered 13.9 million.
During the late 1980’s, baseball-card collecting be-
came a lucrative business, as did trade in autographed
memorabilia. Collectors sought mint-condition base-
ball cards, while both current and retired athletes,
for a fee, appeared at card collector conventions, as
fans waited in long lines for autographs. Prices var-
ied depending on the status of the player and the
rarity of the card and autograph.
Television In 1983, a media poll reported that over
74 percent of Americans watched an average of
more than two and one-half hours of television a day.
Other leisure activities within the home were carry-
overs from earlier decades, including reading a book
or newspaper, listening to music, talking on the tele-
phone, exercising, spending an evening talking with
family and friends, and working on hobbies. In 1980,
Dallaswas the top-rated television show, and its “Who
Shot J. R.?” episode was viewed by 106 million peo-
ple, making it the most-watched individual televi-
sion episode to date. More popular was the two-hour
series finale ofMAS*H(February 28, 1983), which
was seen by more than 120 million people.The Day
After(1983), which dealt with the aftermath of a nu-
clear attack on the United States, was viewed by more
than 100 million people. Other popular shows of the
decade includedThe Golden Girls,60 Minutes,Dy-
nasty,The Cosby Show, andRoseanne. In addition to
these network juggernauts, the advent of cable tele-
vision introduced a plethora of choices for television
viewers, creating dozens of modest successes on
lesser-seen channels, including channels devoted to
specific sports and hobbies.
Video- and Other Games In 1971, the first coin-
operated video arcade game wasComputer Space.As
the number of video games increased, video arcades
opened in shopping malls and other public places,
but their success began to fade after 1983, a decline
attributed to growing concerns that they contrib-
uted to juvenile delinquency. Some parents and mall
owners started a cleanup campaign to rid the malls
of the video arcades. Others simply dismissed the
games as merely a fad that would eventually disap-
The Eighties in America Hobbies and recreation 469