COST OF CHEERLEADING

Date: Wed Jun 18 7:37 PM, 2008

RE: COST OF CHEERLEADING

Date: Thu Jun 19 2:11 PM, 2008

Our program charges $3000 for the season. Includes tuition, competition fees, (except travel), 3 day speed camp with camp clothes, uniform package: uniform, spankies, socks, shoes, bag, bows, make-up, warm-up (jacket and pants), and 2 sets of practice attire. Our tuition also includes unlimited classes.

Date: Thu Jun 19 4:25 PM, 2008

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

Date: Thu Jun 19 4:27 PM, 2008

our gym charges 3600+travel. wowzer

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:04 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

You can't compare all-star cheer to Basketball. Cheer gyms are companies which must earn enough to pay the gym owners and coaches! Yes, they should be able to earn a living off this because they are working full time. You can't compare this to basketball which is run through a school and is paid for by your taxes.

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:10 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

You can't compare all-star cheer to Basketball. Cheer gyms are companies which must earn enough to pay the gym owners and coaches! Yes, they should be able to earn a living off this because they are working full time. You can't compare this to basketball which is run through a school and is paid for by your taxes.

Maybe their talking about "travel ball." My son played and they did quite a bit of traveling but it was not even close to the price of cheer. But there are differences there too. Travel teams don't own their own gyms or lease space. They rent space from sports arenas or local high schools or they practice for free at parks.

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:21 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

You can't compare all-star cheer to Basketball. Cheer gyms are companies which must earn enough to pay the gym owners and coaches! Yes, they should be able to earn a living off this because they are working full time. You can't compare this to basketball which is run through a school and is paid for by your taxes.

basketball is not just in schools anymore, all to be the best just like cheer, they have traveling team, ect. my comparison was on price not the sport. it was a example of how u and myself are paying ridiculous prices for cheer. we pay taxes for cheer too, by the way. and i wasn't criticizing the coaches, read it slowly, the event holders.

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:22 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

our gym charges 3600+travel. wowzer

wow, i dont know how the average income family could afford to pay for cheerleading. Do most families have high incomes. Is there any places for competitive cheer that does not cost so much. i had NO idea it would cost this much. I must re think this idea

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:29 PM, 2008

We can't, or at least I can't any longer. Even with so-called fundraisers. All fundraisers do is keep me from falling behind. They don't save me money like it originally did in past years. Seems like the more competitive it's gotten the more expensive its gotten. I appreciate the fundraisers, don't get me wrong. But there's only so many hours in the day.

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:32 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

You can't compare all-star cheer to Basketball. Cheer gyms are companies which must earn enough to pay the gym owners and coaches! Yes, they should be able to earn a living off this because they are working full time. You can't compare this to basketball which is run through a school and is paid for by your taxes.

Maybe their talking about "travel ball." My son played and they did quite a bit of traveling but it was not even close to the price of cheer. But there are differences there too. Travel teams don't own their own gyms or lease space. They rent space from sports arenas or local high schools or they practice for free at parks.

don't u pay for that in tutition anyway. i know of a gym that started out practicing at the park, renting space at the local gyms, they were very good coming out and didn't cost much either. and to me that's what is was all about, not profit

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:34 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

We can't, or at least I can't any longer. Even with so-called fundraisers. All fundraisers do is keep me from falling behind. They don't save me money like it originally did in past years. Seems like the more competitive it's gotten the more expensive its gotten. I appreciate the fundraisers, don't get me wrong. But there's only so many hours in the day.

Not that I am happy others cannot afford these prices, I just think it is so expensive, I guess if you only have one child but I have several and not sure its the price to pay just for cheer. hmm

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:45 PM, 2008

What about the cost of privates???
Are there any gyms that teach tumbling well enough NOT to pay an additional $100+ a month??? Or are privates encouraged for extra revenue for the gyms??

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:46 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

You can't compare all-star cheer to Basketball. Cheer gyms are companies which must earn enough to pay the gym owners and coaches! Yes, they should be able to earn a living off this because they are working full time. You can't compare this to basketball which is run through a school and is paid for by your taxes.

Maybe their talking about "travel ball." My son played and they did quite a bit of traveling but it was not even close to the price of cheer. But there are differences there too. Travel teams don't own their own gyms or lease space. They rent space from sports arenas or local high schools or they practice for free at parks.

don't u pay for that in tutition anyway. i know of a gym that started out practicing at the park, renting space at the local gyms, they were very good coming out and didn't cost much either. and to me that's what is was all about, not profit

Yes, you're very right, they do include it in tuition. But the cost to rent might cost each child an extra $25 per month, depending on where kids practice. Sometimes, the b-ball coach is well connected and school gym or court time is dontated. The typical price was about $100 per month (more now I'm sure) with $500 start up for more competitive teams for a 9 month season, sometimes shorter. So that is/was $1400 plus travel. I thought it was a high price to pay several years ago. I only wish cheer was $1400 plus travel.

Date: Thu Jun 19 5:49 PM, 2008

Sorry, it was $500 when son got to middle school and eary high school age because they wanted a home unif and travel unif, sweats, matching bags, etc. Understandably - they were 'BALLIN' by then (LOL). But it only cost about $200 to $250 to start up when he was gradeschool age.

Date: Thu Jun 19 6:06 PM, 2008

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

is anyone taking a look at the event holders? is cheer only out for a profit? basketball with travel would be not even half of what we spend every year. my girls love it, but how do we put the love of the sport not love of MONEY back into the sport. jmo

You can't compare all-star cheer to Basketball. Cheer gyms are companies which must earn enough to pay the gym owners and coaches! Yes, they should be able to earn a living off this because they are working full time. You can't compare this to basketball which is run through a school and is paid for by your taxes.

Let us pretend that basketball had to pay for the building, pay for the basket, pay for the ball etc. Do you have any idea what a spring floor costs. Let's try another sport like for instance, motocross. Bike $6700, modifications for the bike $700, weekend race $75.00 entry fee, gear (helmet, pants, chest protecter, goggles, etc) $1500. Repairs to the bike after every race $50 to $250. How do we put the love of the sport not the love of money back into the sport. Get over yourself. If its free, it probably isn't worth it anyway. Keeping girls and guys out of trouble and in shape is a good thing.

Date: Fri Jun 20 5:52 AM, 2008

I will attempt to hold out and complete this year of cheer being that I went through the tryout but for just my daughter alone to travel, tuition, camp, practice clothes and uniform it cost me $6,000.

Another question, my understanding Varsity has a rebate program, whereas some gyms are rec'd $50K - $125K in rebates. Where does this money go to? I know my gym had too of rec'd a sizeable amount but nothing was given back to the cheerleaders? We parents paid for these entry fees, why are gyms aloud to profit from our entry fees.

Cheer is not a sport but a money making business. I am questioning myself why do this when scholorships are crap in college. What are these kids going to get out of this with us parents paying $10-12 grand a year? This sport is turning me very bitter...

Date: Fri Jun 20 9:12 AM, 2008

It's not money wasted. There are so many benefits of cheer:

Athletically fit kids - over 33% of the US is overweight or obese.
They learn, teamwork skills that carry over into every area of their life as they grow up; self esteem; diligence; hard work; patience. You can't put a price tag on those things.

Granted, we do have some affluent families in our gym. Some are very well off, some are comfortable, some budget carefully to give their kids something they feel is very important. We also have some families who can't afford it. Some of our families are very generous and help with travel fees for them. Our gym owners also work with those families to help them pay for costs. Sometimes the kids volunteer time to help around the gym, or the parents help with the office work/administration. Since the gym would have to pay someone to do these things, it's a win/win situation.

While there are some sports programs through school that may cost a lot less, these are reasons I like cheer. First of all, everyone gets to participate 100% and gets placed on a level team that fits their skills. If your child is not particularly good at a team sport, they may not get to play at all. This negates most of the benefits of cheer listed above - particularly the physical fitness and the self esteem. Since cheer is year round, they stay athletically fit. Your child would have to participate in multiple sports in order to get a year round workout.

Amac · Veteran Member

Anonymous wrote:

What about the cost of privates???
Are there any gyms that teach tumbling well enough NOT to pay an additional $100+ a month??? Or are privates encouraged for extra revenue for the gyms??

I've coached, and I consider myself a pretty qualified coach. I taught tumbling classes, and I taught privates. In a class, even a small well taught class, it is impossible to teach 6-8 kids in one hour what you can teach a child one on one in half an hour. If you look at it mathematically, in a class with 6 kids, each child can only get 10 minutes of one on one time, while in a private lesson, you have 1/2 an hour dedicated to that child. Now, I'm not knocking classes, I feel as long as your child is learning, no matter what pace its at, its a good thing. Just stating that some parents see the value and have the ability to pay for privates. Honestly, even if Bela Karoli (probably spelled wrong) were teaching tumbling classes at Gym A, there would be some parents who would be willing to pay for privates so there child would have an "upper edge."

As far as the gym making revenue off it, I know gyms do it differently, but my gym hardly made any revenue off of my private lessons. As a coach, I was making $12 an hour before taxes to teach classes and coach teams. And I had my hours maxed out (I was coaching 3 teams plus tumbling, probably working 20 hours a week, almost every hour the gym was open. M-F from about 4-8, sometimes earlier or later.) If you do the math, I was making around $800 a month. My rent alone was $600, plus I needed to eat, pay for gas, pay for school, etc. $800 doesn't go very far. I couldn't get a weekend job. No one will hire someone to work weekends who's gone at least one weekend a month. Anyways, I needed to do privates to make a living. Not for the gym to survive. They only made $5 an hour off of my privates.

Just my 2 cents. Not everyone is out get rich in this sport. Not saying NO one is, but not EVERYONE.

Date: Fri Jun 20 4:35 PM, 2008

Yes - event holders are making money. If they weren't making money, they wouldn't be in business and there would be no cheer competitions. It's called capitalism.

Date: Fri Jun 20 9:20 PM, 2008

Sadly I am a parent struggling to pay for cheer, this will be my daughters third year, and I am so scared to stop her she is on a five team and progressing so well. After three years cheer is my kids whole life, I have looked for sponsors, fundraised, etc ( but with this economy everybody's broke) , so it's hard to sell anything or get sponsors for anything. Places that used to just don't do it anymore.

I need to pull them, but I just can't. (yes I am that parent in the gym that is behind two months) It is the worse feeling ever!!!!! I actually have two in cheer the youngest needs it because she has ADD and cheer helps balance her out without medication, (when we are off from cheer she is a mess, I mean bouncing off the walls) and my oldest is built like a powerhouse, I don't know what she would turn into without cheer.

I thought about just having them tumble for a year, but I have seen kids "take the year off" then when they come back they are like level two athletes. It's scary. So far my gym has been kind and they are giving me the opportunity to come up with the money, but there will be a point when I have to do something. Financially we have lost so much in the last two years, cheer was not just my kids savor, but mine and my husbands as well, it was the glue holding us together, we could not fight about anything and we pushed forward because the "next competition" was around the corner.

I just wished the cheer gyms and companies realized what this sport has meant and still does for so many families, and try to be more reasonable especially for those families with more than on kid in this sport.

Signed a Parent in Distress
(Still hopeful and praying everyday)