All-Star Covid-19 / Varsity Response

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randomactsofcheer said:
Postponing events is not unique to cheer, but none of these sanctioning bodies have begun rescheduling events. All that I have seen have been postponed indefinitely.

I completely agree. What Varsity has done has put gyms and parents in an impossible position. What they should have done was reach out to all the gyms registered for their competitions, asked when they thought would be an appropriate time to begin rescheduling events, and given them ample time to respond. Instead, they got very little, if any, buy-in from gym owners. They announced it publicly on social media with dates already chosen for parents and athletes to see. The communication about rescheduling competitions completely blindsided many gyms and it sounds like some are worried that they will not receive the competition fees back from Varsity for the rescheduled competitions, putting them in the position of either paying parents back out of their own pockets when they have no income coming into their gym, or having to tell parents they don’t have the money to give back the competition fees.
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Unfortunately, we have no idea what their contractual agreements are with these facilities, and to play the "what they should have done" game is fruitless unless you know what agreements they are legally bound to with these third party venues. Coronavirus is blindsiding everyone and to pretend that Varsity, or any other business, can just get their money back immediately from third party businesses is not realistic. Disney World still states it is just closed to the end of the month, seems unrealistic to me, but every single Mom and Pop in Orlando is needing Disney to open their doors or most won't survive. While that may seem irresponsible to say they are just closed until the end of the month, that is allowing business owners to get loans and giving the city of Orlando time to figure out how they can stabilize their economy. My husband is in commercial finance and the amount of loan requests is beyond staggering and most businesses are having to wait on their loans to provide their consumers answers.
 
catlady said:
Unfortunately, we have no idea what their contractual agreements are with these facilities, and to play the "what they should have done" game is fruitless unless you know what agreements they are legally bound to with these third party venues. Coronavirus is blindsiding everyone and to pretend that Varsity, or any other business, can just get their money back immediately from third party businesses is not realistic. Disney World still states it is just closed to the end of the month, seems unrealistic to me, but every single Mom and Pop in Orlando is needing Disney to open their doors or most won't survive. While that may seem irresponsible to say they are just closed until the end of the month, that is allowing business owners to get loans and giving the city of Orlando time to figure out how they can stabilize their economy. My husband is in commercial finance and the amount of loan requests is beyond staggering and most businesses are having to wait on their loans to provide their consumers answers.
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No one is pretending that any business or individual can get their money back immediately because of a cancellation. My problem is with the way Varsity is communicating with and treating gyms and athletes during this crisis. It is putting a ridiculous amount of unwanted pressure onto “mom and pop” gyms and is in no way comparable to the way any other sports association is behaving right now.
 
randomactsofcheer said:
No one is pretending that any business or individual can get their money back immediately because of a cancellation. My problem is with the way Varsity is communicating with and treating gyms and athletes during this crisis. It is putting a ridiculous amount of unwanted pressure onto “mom and pop” gyms and is in no way comparable to the way any other sports association is behaving right now.
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It's obvious you have inside information on Varsity's contractual agreements and what they are able to communicate right now. Can Varsity get a full refund on any deposits made to Disney and Convention Centers without rescheduling? If not, what percentage, if any, do they get back and when? If you are able to tell us "what they should have done" I'm sure you have those answers for gym owners and parents.

ETA: US Volleyball has a similar club season, and also, uses Convention Centers. You might want to read their website and check out their postponed dates. They have rescheduled things currently for May and June.
 
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Interesting Survey:

WORLDWIDE – After more than a week of social-turmoil, and highly-combative responses to the direction of cheerleading in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, a clear lack of understanding between Gym Owners, Coaches, Parents, and Athletes was revealed. Without a precedence to base our decision making, the cheerleading industry has never been in greater need of real-life facts and data to support the choices being made.

The purpose of our independent and anonymous study, ‘Decision of the People 2020’ is to illustrate a clear path of the current and future needs and wants of the cheerleading industry.

Your opinion matters. Please choose the button below that best correlates to your role in the industry and answer candidly.

Decision of the People: Cheerleading in Crisis 2020 - cheerUPDATES
 
DancerDude0118 said:
Welp, it’s official... the Olympics WILL be postponed to, most likely, 2021.
Olympics 2020 postponed: IOC member says coronavirus forces change

It’s your move now, Varsity/USASF/IASF/ICU.
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Varsity is not a governing body so the mystery that they get to make the decisions for whoever is... tells a different story. Governing bodies sanction events and typically include insurance (catastrophic) for the membered athletes. USASF has changed their language to “governing Authority” (whatever that means) and is only organized at the state level. For a decade USA Cheer took out PR news wire press releases that they are the governing body for all things “cheer” including the scholastic and rec leagues. They most certainly intervened in music rights but no word from them on this issue. WHY is that? ICU is the provisional governing body. I believe that they will have to follow the IOC path or the not yet a sport will look foolish.
 
BlueCat said:
ThereOur tuition system works against us a bit in that we average out everything over 12 months, rather than paying separately for entry fees, music, choreo. Some gyms have basically already collected all of that.) If we have mostly normal revenue, we can possibly last much longer. There won't be anything resembling profit for a long time - even after the quarantine is lifted, but if we can slow the bleeding to a trickle, we probably last longer than most.
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Do you think this will effect the way you set up payments in the future? Does all of this change your opinion on an all inclusive plan vs paying by item?
 
AScheer said:
Do you think this will effect the way you set up payments in the future? Does all of this change your opinion on an all inclusive plan vs paying by item?
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I don't think so. Most parents prefer a steady, consistent payment plan. It is also much easier to administer.
 
Concern with RESCHEDULING SUMMIT/WORLDS overlapping current season:

Staff potentially making 20-21 placement decisions based on whether someone can/can't do Worlds 2020.

Not saying everyone would do this, but:

Let's say NEW SUMMIT is in July. Suzy was supposed to go with Shady Athletics J4. She makes J4 at her 20-21 tryout.

Well, Suzy can't go to Summit now because short notice, money, a prior commitment, etc.

Shady Athletics is salty about replacing her for Summit, so she is moved from the Level 4 workout group down to the workout group for Senior 3.

See also:

Shady Athletics coach sends mass text: "RESCHEDULED SUMMIT IS JULY 8TH-10. ANYONE UNABLE TO ATTEND WILL BE PLACED ON SENIOR 3 FOR THE SEASON."

That's basically cheer extortion but people are nuts, man.
 
The most responsible option would be to rip the bandaid off and cancel the season. Does it suck? Absolutely and everyone has the right to feel sad, mad or angry. However, it is irresponsible to keep dragging these announcements on. Varsity is far from the only guilty party on this---older still has running with her coach. His program is small enough to comply with the CDC recommendations and remain socially distant. He is also a teacher and we briefly talked about the fact that Florida isn't going back to school. Officially they've said April 15th, but realistically, the entire rest of the year is a wash. Getting kiddos their personal belongings and allowing teachers and families to prepare is the responsible choice, but that isn't what is happening. I've already told my kiddos they're not going back---if I am wrong, they'll be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not going to get their hopes up as they count down to going back just to be like, "Actually...it's cancelled." It's unfair to the gyms, families and athletes who are playing the delicate balance of how to prepare. This situation is not unprecedented---for our lifetime it is---but this isn't the first pandemic the US has gone through and it's doubtful that it'll be the last. We need to take the lessons of the past and apply them to help us navigate our future. I have no expectation of life returning back to normal for at least a year, if not longer.
 
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