Settling the Score: Is Cheerleading a Sport? (2024)

FAQs

Is cheerleading a sport or not? ›

Cheerleading is competitive, with athletic requirements rivaling those of other team sports. However, many athletic associations do not designate cheerleading as a sport, often resulting in less funding and resources.

“Cheerleading encompasses many different aspects --- from physicality to showmanship," Virgil said. "Cheerleaders are required to weight train, condition, practice and perform under time constraints just as other sports such as football basketball or track.”

Introduction. There is an ongoing debate among the media and cheer world as to whether or not cheerleading should be recognized as a sport under Title IX. [1] A recent poll found that 60% of people thought cheerleading was a sport, while 35% did not.

Judges use the Difficulty Drivers to determine a team's score. The Difficulty Drivers include: Degree of Difficulty, Percent of Team Participation (Maximizing Stunt groups based on the number of athletes), Combination of Skills (level and non-level appropri- ate) and Pace of skills performed.

“The courts have continuously ruled that it cannot be counted as a sport under Title IX.” Title IX, the section of the Education Amendments of 1972 requiring that men and women be treated equally academically, prohibits gender-based discrimination in sports.

What is a sport exactly? According to lexico.com, it is “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” With this definition, cheerleading fits all the criteria and therefore should be considered a sport.

As announced by the California Interscholastic Federation itself, as well as other media outlets, California Governor Jerry Brown signed state assembly bill 949 into law, making cheerleading an officially sanctioned sport beginning with the 2017-18 academic year.

I hate when people say, “Oh, cheerleading is easy.” Actually, cheerleading can be very difficult, especially when trying to hit a perfect stunt. Cheerleading had an enormous amount of injuries compared to some of the other commonly known sports.

Cheerleaders train just as hard as any other athlete. They spend the same amount of time running routines to make sure they are executed perfectly. Much like a football team running a play, if a routine is not executed the right way, you risk seriously injuring not just yourself, but the flyer as well.

It means that no stunts fell, all your tumbling landed, and no one violated the safety rules. These are bigger accomplishments than you may think! That is why many competitions these days have begun giving out awards or mementos for those teams who “hit zero,” as we say.

What does hitting 0 mean in cheerleading? ›

Hit Zero. Hitting Zero means that all stunts, tumbling, jumps, dance in the performance of a routine have been executed without any deductions from the judging panel. In other words “HIT ZERO” means ZERO deductions in a routine.

Level 3.2 – Stunting at level 3, tumbling at level 2.

California and other states (including but not limited to Alaska, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Virginia) have passed laws classifying high…

Overall, the athleticism put into competitive dance and cheerleading shows that they are sports. They are scored just like many other sports and they have artistic freedom, performance quality, and technique as well.

A sport is an activity involving physical exertion, skill, and competition. Based on this definition, any activity that meets all three requirements are considered sports.