You Say Cheerleading Isn't a Sport? You're wrong

You Say Cheerleading Isn't a Sport? You're wrong.

Cheerleading catches a lot of flack for not being a sport because it is mostly females in the sport and more so because it does not have a ball involved. There is not much running and no nets or great objectives like scoring at the core of it. However, we have 4 reasons that say that cheerleading is a sport.

1. The first reason that cheerleading is a sport is because the dictionary says it is. According to Merriam-Webster, a sport is, "a contest or game in which people do certain physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other." Well, cheerleading incorporates rules for each competition and even has rules for the cheerleaders at the schools and so they have to abide by them while doing acts at the games for football or basketball. This definition mostly applies to the competitions since those mostly have rules that stand out and the aspect of teams competing against each other.
2. The second reason cheerleading is a sport is because of the physical activity that is involved. Looking at that definition, it states that a sport has physical activity. Cheerleading has several physical aspects to it and they include: flipping, tumbling, lifting, tosses, and formations. The sport of cheerleading includes people lifting up other people and tossing them over their heads and catching them again; that requires a lot more strength and athleticism than throwing a football or baseball since those do not weigh 100+ pounds.
3. Reason three for cheerleading being a real sport is another part of the definition of a sport. The requirement that a sport be of competitive nature. As stated previously, the sport of cheerleading is mostly localized to the cheerleading competitions while the games are not quite as competitive and more about rallying the crowd. However, the competitions are just that, competitive, it is in the name.
4. Reason number four for cheerleading being a sport is the fact that gymnastics is regarded as a sport. Gymnastics is the foundation to cheerleading; cheerleading is gymnastics with an added aspect of rallying the crowd. It is not logical to accept gymnastics but not let cheerleading be a sport either. Having a sport be accepted while ignoring something very similar that is of equal difficulty is not a wise way to analyze things.

Hopefully now you are convinced that cheerleading is a sport and that while it is not the toughest sport, that it is one. As a Chicago cheerleading apparel company, Gear4Cheer is all about the sport of cheerleading and supplying cheer apparel and cheer accessories to teams who need it.