There's a CEA in Fairfax, VA, 40 min away from Stafford. There's another CEA 50 min away in the opposite direction in Richmond, VA. There's a Stingrays and a Twisters about an hour away. I'm not sure of anything in the immediate area of Stafford except for USA AllStars, as the person above mentioned. These gym openings tend to not be random and usually are more like plopping a different name on an already existing group of people, and you wonder if this one has anything to do with USA. Last week on CheerMatch, there were 5 teams competing in the Junior Medium Level 3 division from three different states... all were named California All Stars. I know this is a business before it is a sport, but it's really not great for a competitive sport to have everyone named the same thing. Even if the Vegas gym called themselves California All Stars-Las Vegas instead of just California, it would help to differentiate between the teams so you know they are indeed separate gyms, and it's not that weird for them to compete against each other. Sometimes I see their locations mentioned, but other times it's confusing and I don't know if I'm watching something from California or something from Arizona. In a sport that's already confusing, we're just adding to it if everyone is the same thing. Imagine baseball if instead of 30 different teams, we had 5 Boston Red Sox teams, 3 Texas Rangers teams, 4 Yankees, 5 Dodgers, etc... People would care much less who wins. I know, I know, it's a business. I just miss simpler times where we all competed against each other instead of pretending we were the same gym as someone 10 states away lol.
Usually the location is noted in the schedule/performance order so even if the announcer doesn't say "California Allstars Ontario" you can look at the schedule and see which one it is. I get it though. Most of us have watched or followed cheer so long that we can hear (example) Cheetahs and know they're at CA Plano whereas Steelcats are at CA in PA, and I forget that not everyone knows that. And honestly, there are new locations added every year sometimes so even those of us who follow all star are at times lost on locations/teams Example: I was seeing Rays teams on the schedule for NCA that I hadn't heard of. Ex: Beach, Tropic, etc. They are from the FL location and I had no idea.
Cheer Athletics is opening a new location in Rochester, NY for the upcoming season. This brings the total number of CA locations to 11. (Austin, Charlotte, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Frisco, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Plano, Rochester, St. Louis)
Congrats on the new location! I missed Omaha! Is that open this season or coming soon? Crazy growth in the last few years. I remember when you opened Charlotte!
I think they were about as eager to have a corn theme as we would be about changing Plano to a cow theme. I like their choice much better, but I will let them share the new theme when they are ready.
Only 15 years too late, ugh. But woo Upstate NY! Congrats!! Please do a Wegmans theme!! (Can I ask what gym youre taking over if you're allowed to say?)
That's right down the road from NY Icons. You never want to see familiar gym names disappear, but maybe this could help that area rise to prominence in cheer a little more. While I'm not a fan of this "every gym is named the same thing" trend, in this case, it seems like it could help to have a "mega gym" name in a place that previously hasn't really been well known in the sport.
