Okay, I had a thought last night and I wanted to get some of you all to start thinking about this situation.
Should competitive cheerleading and dance be considered amateur sport?
The reason I was thinking about this, now that there are more OPEN cheerleading and dance teams around the ages of cheerleaders and dancer can be endless.
The "performers" can, in a since, come with every level of skill and from any profession. Therefore, some of the performers could be PROFESSIONALS and actually be getting paid to perform(outside the competition, of course, or maybe not).
I guess I always thought of these competitions similar to sports in the amateur arena.
When a cheerleader or dancer gets a chance to perform on a PROFESSIONAL team (receive a salary); should they still be able to perform against a cheerleader or dancer that is still at the amateur level?
Yes, the "cheerleaders" you see at NFL/NBA games usually receive a (very small) salary.
But I think you have to differentiate between just ANY salary (such as those who receive a very small paycheck) compared with sports where a professional is paid so much it allows them to do nothing else but practice their sport.
For example, a professional boxer that earns a $2 million payday has a distinct advantage over an amateur. With the money he earns, he has nothing better to do all day than train and get better. But the amateur probably has to work a 9 to 5 to pay his bills and has to train when he finds time in the off hours.
But cheer doesn't work that way - the "paid" professionals still have to have a regular job because the pay just isn't enough. So you can't really compare cheerleading to sports where the professionals have a huge payday.
Okay, yes the salaries are small, but yet they are getting paid to perform. There's probably a good chance there are other "non-monetary" rewards as well.
Take this as an example:
Remember the television show "So, you think you could dance?" If you were to bring all those dancers together and form one open hip hop/jazz dance team, just for one Open National, would the competition be considered "Fair"?
