All-Star New Changes - Divisions For Worlds

[East78]

A mega gym isn't going to dismantle their larger teams, but I think what it comes down to is that a mega gym like CEA, CA (both of them), Stringrays, etc likely have more level 5 reserves across their larger teams that they can now turn into an XS team than some gyms have actual level 5 athletes total.

I don't think you can group CEA in the mega gym category. Stingrays had more kids tryout for worlds teams the CEA Kernersville has athletes. CEA has a bunch of locations, but the Kernersville is closer to a D2 size gym then a mega gym.

 

[123jump4!]

Maybe small gym XS teams will still have a chance against the big gyms. I can't see the big gyms stacking their teams with the most skilled athletes on the XS teams. If anything don't they usually put the best athletes on the more well known teams?

@CC1107 It sounded like your gym has a bunch of talent and your CP with awesome skills wasn't sure to make the team. They should absolutely have a chance!

I don't think a D2 worlds sounds like a good idea. Let's see how this plays out.

 

[cheer25mom]

(I have no dog in this fight so this is strictly from the outside looking in) Please do not take these questions as argumentative or condescending in any way. I am just trying to understand both sides.

1. What would be your suggestion for D2 gyms in this situation?
2. Would you suggest perhaps a D2 worlds? (similar to how they do summit)
3. Are you for or against leveling the playing field? (by leveling the playing field that means having to compete against big gyms).
4. How do the big gyms (multiple locations) have an unfair advantage over D2 gyms, where those multi-location gyms do NOT have a world's team at each location? Should they not be allowed to field an XS team because one of their other locations (3 hours away in some cases) has a world's team already?
5. How does a multi-location gym have an advantage over a D2 gym when the same rules apply in regards to crossovers? Do you think a rule should be put in place that limits crossovers even more in the XS division?

Here's my take:
1. There isn't a good one, they are being set up to fail.
2. Yes
3. If a small gym wants to run with the big boys, they should have that choice, but they shouldn't be forced to.
4. They have access to the resources and coaching staff of the larger organization as a whole. Most satellite locations are NOT far enough away that travel to the main gym would be prohibitive, especially since most set up carpools to get talented athletes to worlds teams. Many kids in our area are doing a commute for about 2 hours one way to a mega gym location that is consistently in the finals at worlds. They would stay at home gym if they had enough talent to do this. Big gyms have MORE than enough athletes for their worlds teams. Being able to go extra small will be just another development program for their flagship teams, pulling more athletes from small gyms.
5. See above. They don't HAVE to cross over. they have plenty of athletes to fill those spots.

 

[CC1107]

Maybe small gym XS teams will still have a chance against the big gyms. I can't see the big gyms stacking their teams with the most skilled athletes on the XS teams. If anything don't they usually put the best athletes on the more well known teams?

@CC1107 It sounded like your gym has a bunch of talent and your CP with awesome skills wasn't sure to make the team. They should absolutely have a chance!

I don't think a D2 worlds sounds like a good idea. Let's see how this plays out.

OK - Full Disclosure. 1) CP's gym in NOT D2 not even really close if D2 75 athletes (is it?) 2) I'm really not at all worried about CP's team not not having a chance. Like I said, they are strong and talented with unlimited potential. 3) Evidently I was the only one worried about CP not making the team - coaches, athletes and my daughter all thought I was being ridiculous

I think the using the 'everybody loves an underdog' mentality to float another division was silly. If they simply wanted another division announce it, put no restrictions in place. Don't put a restriction to tout it as the 'leveling the field', have smaller gyms or smaller talent pools flock to it, have a good reception at worlds due to their participation and then pull away the restrictions.

I have zero problem with another division, I don't even fault the Mega Gyms using their last 15 level 5 athletes to build another team. Why would they turn down a chance to compete for another championship? But to tout it as created for one purpose then when successful, flush that purpose away? Shady business to me.

 

[UCFKnights07]

i dont like the idea of a D2 worlds, i think that would be a slap in the face to smaller programs who have talented true level 5 athletes, like "here you cant hang with the big gyms so heres your 2nd rate worlds."

correct me if im wrong, but i felt like part of the reason x-small was created was to somewhat eliminate the amount of teams in small coed and small allgirl. It gave those smaller gyms more leg room, instead of having to scavenge for athletes that might not have true level 5 skills just to even somewhat be competitive in the small division.

im also worried that gyms, will create a XS team solely for those who may not have true level 5 skills to make their premier teams, and turn the XS division into a level 5R-level 4 side show.

 

[Knowcheering]

The main issue I had with X-Small is that you now have XS teams claiming they’re one of the “best in the world”, when reality is that the heavy majority of the world wasn’t even allowed to enter XS at Worlds. It’s one thing to try to level the playing field for smaller teams, but it’s another to be dishonest about what type of division this actually was.

To make X-Small a credible Worlds division, it can’t be so exclusive. And if you do want all these restrictions on XS, then the winner should be called something other than a World Champion. Maybe “XS Grand Champion” or something like that would have been a more appropriate name. Cheer Express Miss Silver is great, but their win would have felt even greater and more valid if their main competition, CJA Bombshells, had been allowed to enter their actual division. I don’t think CJA created an XS team to try to beat up on small gyms— that’s just the number of girls they happened to have after spreading their talent amongst two World teams.

So in that sense I’m glad they’re removing the restrictions for XS.

 

[Emily]

I don't think you can group CEA in the mega gym category. Stingrays had more kids tryout for worlds teams the CEA Kernersville has athletes. CEA has a bunch of locations, but the Kernersville is closer to a D2 size gym then a mega gym.

From their homepage, they have 9 gyms just in NC with over 1000 athletes - that is most definitely a mega-gym.

 

[Cinn124]

For all those suggesting a D2 Worlds, where does that leave the gyms that aren't D2 who can field a true level 5 team with only enough athletes to field an XS?

 

[MomMomMamaMom]

I can’t grasp the idea of a D2 World’s. There would be like 2 to 4 divisions, and would hardly justify a whole competition by itself. But I’m not sure why there couldn’t just be a d2 division at worlds. I guess adding it to Summit is ok too, as it would decrease the cost of travel for the program( and let’s face it, $ is a difference between D1 and D2). But I kind of liked that Summit was about celebrating lower levels.

 

[Emily]

I really hat that they opened the XS-division to all gyms. It was definitely not a "D2" division at worlds and everyone was technically allowed to enter - as long as it was the only worlds team they had in the whole gym-franchise.

The current development in cheerleading goes towards a few mega-gyms that grab a majority of the globes/rings/titles/jackets and then a few large (sometimes also medium) sized gyms that are doing pretty good as well, and then there is a ton of small-ish gyms that have basically no chance against those other gyms. Unless you founded your gym in the early to mid-90s (maybe late 90s) you stand no chance to grow it into a mega-gym. The mega-gyms (especially since they all started expanding like crazy) have a competitive edge over the other gyms that would take quite a long time to overcome even IF the governing body would help them with appropriate rules. And we all know who the governing body is and who they li$ten to.

The reality for small gyms is that as soon as your first handful of athletes are a true level 5 they start the commute to the larger gyms to be on their worlds-teams. It is really hard for them to even retain enough talent to start a worlds team, and then it's tough to keep them when the mega-gym around the corner can advertise their thousands of titles. The concentration that currently happening in the cheer-gym market is not healthy at all for the long-term development of the sport. If this trend continues there will come a time (probably sooner than most would like) where we could see only teams from mega-gyms in finals at worlds. Athletes that want to go to worlds will have to commute to one of the few mega-gyms if they even want to have a shot to make finals.

To me getting rid of the XS-restrictions feels like the mega-gyms were pouty because not so well known gyms actually got some recognition and exposure. I actually loved watching the XS divisions throughout the year. There were some creative routines from gyms I normally didn't watch. It gave those small-ish gyms with their (sometimes first-year) worlds athletes a good shot at actually accomplishing goals because they weren't buried in divisions that were 60-teams-deep.

I truly hope that the USASF gets enough backlash from one-worlds-team-gyms to reverse that decision.

And for those of you loving numbers: out of the 12 divisions open to gyms with more than 1 worlds teams the 36 globes went to the following gyms

• Cheer Athletics (5)
• Cali (5)
• Top Gun (4)
• Flyers (Canada) (4)
• Stingrays (3)
• Woodlands (2)
• GymTyme (1)
• Brandon (1)
• Spirit of Texas (1)
• Cheer Extreme (1)
• Cheer Sport Sharks (1)
• Fame (1)
• World Cup (1)
• T&S (1)
• CJA (1)
• Prodigy (1)
• Viqueens (1)
• Gothenburg (1)
• Fire Allstars (Puerto Rico) (1)

Summing that up: only 4 (!!!) gyms won 50% of the possible globes.

Sorry everyone for the long post, but I think the decision to let every gym enter the XS divisions at worlds will have a detrimental effect on the long-term development of this sport.

 

[XtremeWpg]

Something to consider about this is gyms that field international open and coed 5 and 6 teams.

Smaller gyms often can put together international worlds teams because we have more ages to pull from to form teams. If those gyms also can put together an XS 5 team, those programs have to choose which goes to worlds, or bump their XS into Small where they'd have a more difficult path to finals etc.

Opening up XS for programs with more than 1 worlds team will still benefit smaller/D2 gyms because they can send their international teams and a Senior level team now.

@Emily You forgot that Cheer Sport Sharks have 1 from Great Whites in IO5

 

[alpaca]

I really hat that they opened the XS-division to all gyms. It was definitely not a "D2" division at worlds and everyone was technically allowed to enter - as long as it was the only worlds team they had in the whole gym-franchise.

The current development in cheerleading goes towards a few mega-gyms that grab a majority of the globes/rings/titles/jackets and then a few large (sometimes also medium) sized gyms that are doing pretty good as well, and then there is a ton of small-ish gyms that have basically no chance against those other gyms. Unless you founded your gym in the early to mid-90s (maybe late 90s) you stand no chance to grow it into a mega-gym. The mega-gyms (especially since they all started expanding like crazy) have a competitive edge over the other gyms that would take quite a long time to overcome even IF the governing body would help them with appropriate rules. And we all know who the governing body is and who they li$ten to.

The reality for small gyms is that as soon as your first handful of athletes are a true level 5 they start the commute to the larger gyms to be on their worlds-teams. It is really hard for them to even retain enough talent to start a worlds team, and then it's tough to keep them when the mega-gym around the corner can advertise their thousands of titles. The concentration that currently happening in the cheer-gym market is not healthy at all for the long-term development of the sport. If this trend continues there will come a time (probably sooner than most would like) where we could see only teams from mega-gyms in finals at worlds. Athletes that want to go to worlds will have to commute to one of the few mega-gyms if they even want to have a shot to make finals.

To me getting rid of the XS-restrictions feels like the mega-gyms were pouty because not so well known gyms actually got some recognition and exposure. I actually loved watching the XS divisions throughout the year. There were some creative routines from gyms I normally didn't watch. It gave those small-ish gyms with their (sometimes first-year) worlds athletes a good shot at actually accomplishing goals because they weren't buried in divisions that were 60-teams-deep.

I truly hope that the USASF gets enough backlash from one-worlds-team-gyms to reverse that decision.

And for those of you loving numbers: out of the 12 divisions open to gyms with more than 1 worlds teams the 36 globes went to the following gyms

• Cheer Athletics (5)
• Cali (5)
• Top Gun (4)
• Flyers (Canada) (4)
• Stingrays (3)
• Woodlands (2)
• GymTyme (1)
• Brandon (1)
• Spirit of Texas (1)
• Cheer Extreme (1)
• Cheer Sport Sharks (1)
• Fame (1)
• World Cup (1)
• T&S (1)
• CJA (1)
• Prodigy (1)
• Viqueens (1)
• Gothenburg (1)
• Fire Allstars (Puerto Rico) (1)

Summing that up: only 4 (!!!) gyms won 50% of the possible globes.

Sorry everyone for the long post, but I think the decision to let every gym enter the XS divisions at worlds will have a detrimental effect on the long-term development of this sport.

I love that your broke it down by the numbers. Numbers tell the story.

 

[Keep_Believing]

I am seeing some gyms advertise fielding International Open teams, ________ IOC5 and IO5. Do they not realize you have to pick just one or are they just undecided which way they will go?

 

[cheermommaRN]

@Emily I wish I could shimmy your post multiple times.
I really don't agree with the above poster that said the XS teams should not be called World Champions. That's like saying that the winner of large senior shouldn't be called World Champions because they had too many athletes to compete in small senior.
No large gyms are not going to dismantle their large teams to compete XS but when you have a huge amount of level 5 athletes to chose from it gives you a lot more leeway to create strong teams. I absolutely believe if CA/TG/Cali decided to field an XS team next year, they would decimate any of the current gyms that competed in those divisions because their "worst" level 5 athletes may still be better than the "best" athletes at the small gym.

 

[quitthedrama]

There are dominant clubs/teams/gyms in any sport. I don't buy that they are the reason small gyms can't compete. I've been involved with enough gyms to know that many gyms (not all as some are restricted by rural location or low income demographic region) stay small and not competitive because their gym owners are terrible business owners and their coaching staff is sub par. I don't think there are as many athletes who leave gyms "to win worlds" as people think. If you have a solid, competitive program where your athletes are progressing and feel like they are valued there is a good chance your gym will be successful without being a mega gym. I find it ironic that some of the same people who complain about the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality with the creation of so many divisions and "there are too many bids given out to undeserving teams" are also saying "we need to even the playing field for gyms who can't compete in regular divisions", and "make a division just for small gyms but don't call it D2 because that cheapens the win". If you want Worlds to be the best of the best then I don't see how you can have it both ways.