tournaments, but by the late 1970s the NRC was focused on the professional game while the IRA became focused on the amateur side, and became recognized by the United States Olympic Committee as the official National Governing Body (NGB) of the sport. The IRA was a founding member of the International Racquetball Federation (IRF). Eventually, the IRA became the American Amateur Racquetball Association (AARA); in late 1995, it renamed itself as the United States Racquetball Association (USRA). In 2003, the USRA again renamed itself to USA Racquetball (USAR), to mirror other Olympic sports associations, even though Racquetball is not an Olympic sport. Kendler used his publication ACE to promote both handball and racquetball. Starting in the 1970s, and aided by the fitness boom of that decade, the sport's popularity increased to an estimated 3.1 million players by 1974. Consequent to increased demand, racquetball clubs and courts were founded and built, and sporting goods manufacturers began producing racquetball-specific equipment. This growth continued until the early 1980s, and declining in the decade's latter part when racquet clubs converted to physical fitness clubs, in service to a wider clientele, adding aerobics exercise classes and physical fitness and bodybuilding machines. Since then, the number of players has remained steady, an estimated 5.6 million. The NRC and Kendler ruled over professional racquetball throughout its early stages of growth, but upon his death in 1982 the organization declared bankruptcy and the professional men's tours fell into disarray. Several professional governing bodies ruled the Men's pro tour throughout the 1980s, and the Women broke away and self-organized their own professional tour in the same time period. Eventually, after the tour collapsed in the fall of 1988, a new men's tour called the International Racquetball Tour (IRT) was created by Oregon State President and popular tournament promotor Hank Marcus, which remains the primary men's professional sanctioning body to this day. The women's pro tour has gone by several names in the interim, but is currently known as the Ladies Professional Racquetball tour (LPRT) and has marketing partnerships with the USAR, IRT, and other sanctioning bodies to this day . United Kingdom In 1976, Ian D.W. Wright created the sport of racketball based on U.S. racquetball. British racketball is played in a long by wide squash court – shorter and wider than the U.S. racquetball court–, using a smaller, less dynamic ball than the American racquetball. In racketball, the