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Notes -
Even among RealMenTM, there is a lot less competitive participation sport for Bowling Alone type reasons.
When I was a kid, the culturally dominant paradigm for male participation sport in the UK was pickup games of football (soccer for you Americans) or basketball and the preferred marketing message was "What you are doing is a facsimile of professional team sports, so you should wear what the pros wear in order to be winning like them."
In the current year, the culturally dominant paradigm for male participation sport (I have no idea how accurate this is, but advertising follows the culture) is "Do you even lift, bro?" strength-based gym culture. Strength training is fundamentally PvE in a way which pickup football (or whatever the American equivalent is) is PvP, but even more so the culture of lifting with your gym bros is one of collaborative self-improvement, not competition. I have aged out of the target audience for sportswear marketing, but if I was marketing activewear to gym bros, I would reflect this change in my marketing messaging.
This is even before we consider the modern trend of selling sportswear to the spectators as athleisure. I notice that the men I see in the streets in traditional casual styles are, on average, in much better shape than the men in athleisure. FWIW I don't think the same is true for women, where athleisure appeals to the "I've got it and I want to flaunt it, and sportswear is an excuse to dress sexy before sunset" crowd.
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