- Jun 23, 2011
- 515
- 384
The cheerleading fandom is never going to grow much further than the moms of the competitors and former/current cheerleaders if they continue to make it this inaccessible and difficult to watch. Compare this to a sport like gymnastics that has a ton of fans who have never put on a leotard.
100% this. Here in the UK many of our athletes idolise the big names in the US, but yet never actually get to watch them compete properly and just make do with what clips they see on Instagram and Tiktok. Equally about as many athletes, especially younger ones, don’t know anything about cheer in the US at all! It feels so weird to me as when I was a teen and cheer was new here it was pretty easy to find American teams on YouTube and the Worlds video on demand service was only about $15 for a whole year of access. How do we expect our sport to grow and also for people to take it seriously if it’s expensive and difficult to actually watch.
Obviously cheer here is on a much smaller scale than in the US, but all our virtual competitions this season have been free to watch for everyone.