All-Star Cheer Athletics (questions/rumors)

[yingyang8576]

I'm a huge Panthers fan and love watching them in Large All Girl but are Panthers moving to Medium All Girl for the rest of this season?

 

[Keep_Believing]

*

 

[Teacher Mom]

I'm a huge Panthers fan and love watching them in Large All Girl but are Panthers moving to Medium All Girl for the rest of this season?

I heard they had 31. Is this true?

 

[BlueCat]

I'm a huge Panthers fan and love watching them in Large All Girl but are Panthers moving to Medium All Girl for the rest of this season?

No.

I heard they had 31. Is this true?

They have made some adjustments to roster for the several reasons - injuries being a key one. I don't know for sure what their final number will be, but 31 (or 35) present distinct strategic advantages, at least on the Varsity score sheet.

 

[yingyang8576]

No.


Thanks for your honesty.... I hope they have speedy recovery for those that are hurt.

They have made some adjustments to roster for the several reasons - injuries being a key one. I don't know for sure what their final number will be, but 31 (or 35) present distinct strategic advantages, at least on the Varsity score sheet.

 

[Teacher Mom]

No.



They have made some adjustments to roster for the several reasons - injuries being a key one. I don't know for sure what their final number will be, but 31 (or 35) present distinct strategic advantages, at least on the Varsity score sheet.

Good luck with these changes! They looked great at Majors =)

 

[BlueCat]

Good luck with these changes! They looked great at Majors =)

Thank you! That was definitely their best performance of the year so far.

 

[Alli]

What are some tips you can give to keep your gym super organized and on top of things? With Cheer Athletics being so clearly successful you must have a few tips to offer :)

 

[BlueCat]

What are some tips you can give to keep your gym super organized and on top of things? With Cheer Athletics being so clearly successful you must have a few tips to offer :)

We have learned a ton over the years, I'm not sure how to even start. Hiring great people and trying to treat them as well as you can is probably the most important lesson.

 

[Cheer Dad]

Bluecat, I've heard that CA is charging athletes for items that were donated to the athletes/teams from individuals.

Has this been a long running practice for CA or just a bad rumor and CA would never charge a family for something they (the gym) didn't pay for?

If a such a policy does exist aren't you afraid of alienating your customer base through added expenses?



**I see crazy people**

 

[BlueCat]

Bluecat, I've heard that CA is charging athletes for items that were donated to the athletes/teams from individuals.

Has this been a long running practice for CA or just a bad rumor and CA would never charge a family for something they (the gym) didn't pay for?

If a such a policy does exist aren't you afraid of alienating your customer base through added expenses?*

You don't give a specific example, so it is hard to address the question precisely.

Regarding tuition/service type items, we primarily average out our costs over the season and specifically don't break things down in a line-item fashion so I am assuming you are referring to retail-type items.

There are a few different things that I believe you may be talking about:

A. Team Gifts

As much as possible, we like to keep some measure of control over our brand image. We have specific vendors we use and work with to ensure that items with our name and logo on them are of the quality we expect. We also have a sister company that produces t-shirts and screen printed items. If it doesn't have the CA name, logo, or one of the team names or logos on it, then those restrictions mostly don't apply.

The closest thing I can think of to your example are the "team gifts" that (some) parents want to provide for their specific team at points throughout the year. Occasionally parents will find a vendor willing to "give" a specific team a CA-branded item (shirt, bag, etc) in exchange for being able to use Cheer Athletics in their advertising and social media. We typically don't let people give to specific teams in that way, but rather require them get CA-branded stuff through the normal channels.

If we generally allowed companies to target certain teams for donations-in-exchange-for-exposure, the higher-profile teams could potentially go out and get a large amount of stuff "donated". Fair or not, the younger or lower-level teams would have a much tougher time finding people to give them stuff. The last thing we want is to create MORE reasons for athletes to be unhappy with team placement. Adding in "Team XYZ gets a ton of free stuff, but we have to pay for it" wouldn't help the gym camaraderie at all.

If someone is wanting to donate items for the entire athlete base, then we would absolutely entertain that. [email protected]. (Finding people wanting to give 2000 items is tougher than finding someone wanting to give 20-30.)

So to (I assume) address your question, there are instances where Team XYZ comes to us and says, Vendor ABC wants to "give" our team a free Cheer Athletics t-shirt and we say: no, you have to go through our t-shirt company. So, in a sense, we are charging for items that they could otherwise get for "free".

B. Vendor discounts.

Another example I thought of is if we are placing a large order and a vendor will say something like: "If you order 1900 sets of warmups, we will give you 100 for free." In that hypothetical case, we wouldn't find 100 athletes and give them free warmups, while charging the other 1900 full price. We would essentially divide out the costs over all 2000 athletes.

C. Retail markup.

We love what we do and firmly believe that we provide wonderful services and products for the athletes in our care. That being said, we do not pretend to be a charity or an (intentionally) non-profit organization. Items that bear our teams, logo, brand, name, etc. are sold for a theoretical profit. There is an up-charge to most of the items we sell. That is how businesses work. You bring in a little more money than you spend. If you don't do that, you won't be in business very long.

That being said, once you factor in labor, tax, rent, utilities, the cost of unsold items, shipping, and all of the other overhead that businesses have, the amount of money left over from our retail operations is a tiny fraction of what people assume. The costs associated with running that type of business are dramatically higher than what people think. We aren't getting rich by selling Claw shirts.


We have expressed to our customer base that we are working harder than ever in the upcoming season to keep the costs down to try to keep our sport as affordable as possible. We are going to try to limit how much the teams will spend on outside "non-essential" items, we are cutting back on the number of new uniforms, and we are going to re-use the same warmup design for many years. We strongly believe that athletes are more than getting their money's worth in our program, but we understand that for many families, money is tight.

 

[OnceUponACheerleader]

You don't give a specific example, so it is hard to address the question precisely.

Regarding tuition/service type items, we primarily average out our costs over the season and specifically don't break things down in a line-item fashion so I am assuming you are referring to retail-type items..................

My understanding of the question was,

Suzie graduated from team xyz and wants to donate all her uniforms/practice wear to her friend Sally who just started on team xyz - @Cheer Dad ?

 

[BlueCat]

My understanding of the question was,

Suzie graduated from team xyz and wants to donate all her uniforms/practice wear to her friend Sally who just started on team xyz - @Cheer Dad ?

To my knowledge, we have never had any involvement in that type of transaction. In fact, I believe it is fairly common for athletes sell/give their old uniforms & practice wear directly to other athletes, and no we do not take a "cut" of that.

NOTE: We may, at some point, set up a type of mini consignment sale, but that would be optional for athletes. (They could still sell directly if they wished.)

 

[UCFKnights07]

i guess i never realized this, until the previous post, but if athletes have to purchase uniforms are they allowed to keep them once they leave the team, or do most willingly donate them back.

what about the 2013 uniforms that panthers and cheetahs? debuted. I know they were a gift from rebel, but were the athletes given a choice on having to give them back once worlds was over.

 

[BlueCat]

i guess i never realized this, until the previous post, but if athletes have to purchase uniforms are they allowed to keep them once they leave the team, or do most willingly donate them back.

what about the 2013 uniforms that panthers and cheetahs? debuted. I know they were a gift from rebel, but were the athletes given a choice on having to give them back once worlds was over.

The uniforms that the athletes actually pay for and purchase are theirs to sell, keep, trade, as they wish. The ones that are rented or (in rare cases) given to the gyms as part of a promotional arrangement with CA are typically taken back up at the end of the season (or when an athlete resigns).