All-Star Covid-19 / Varsity Response

[BlueCat]

While I don't agree with every gym or event producer and their response to the current crisis, I would encourage people to be a little more understanding of others and cut them a little slack. I get that it is "just cheer" (or "just basketball" or "just sports", etc) but as a previous poster pointed out, these are people careers and it affects thousands of people and families up and down the line. Many gyms, EPs, coaches will lose their jobs along with many others connected (like janitors, t-shirt manufacturers, hotel employees, etc.) XYZ company may be twice (or 1000 times) as big as another, but that likely means they are losing twice (or 1000 times) as much money daily and are looking at that same ratio of staff that may get laid off. I get that other industries are hurting, but that doesn't diminish the pain the cheer folks are feeling.

Also, these are crazy times. I have been doing this for more than a quarter century and nothing in that time has remotely prepared us for this situation. It isn't in the gym owner, coach, or event producer handbook anywhere. It is hard to be calm and rational - particularly when you really don't know if you will be closed another 2 weeks, 6 months, or longer.

In my heart of hearts, I think some companies are acting unwisely and likely hurting their long-term best interest to survive short term, but I try to resist criticizing at this point because I don't fully know their situation. If you don't think an event should be held, then I would encourage you not to go and/or tell your gym you aren't going.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

October is a nightmare for anyone who is college student age.

The average student probably could make it work with school and cheer for the semester just to finish out Worlds as long as you live close enough. It would just be a rough semester.

But if you have college cheer plans or really demanding academic program that doesn'tt allow time for it - or are moving too far to even consider it, your season is basically over.

I could definitely see the Die Hards or Cheer Is Life crowd sitting out a semester and postponing college til January for it. Or opting not to cheer on the college team they made just for it.

To each his/her own but still, this timeframe is crazy.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

October puts high school cheerleaders in a small pickle with football and getting ready for comps, but if your coach is flexible, it will be fine.

 

[catlady]

I understand and am sorry that there is so much economic hurt to go around. Other major sports and college athletics that canceled their season did not ask their fans (in this case parents) to fully bare that economic burden and collateral damage of canceled events. Are the Red Sox season ticket holders paying for all those little bars around Fenway to stay in business? Who is supporting all the little restaurants around Broadway? And meanwhile Varsity is rescheduling events for May that are still very doubtful to even occur while at the same time USA swimming and I am sure other Olympic sports are trying to move all events to summer of 2021.

Make no mistake, I understand and FEEL the economic hurt that is happening and will happen. Just question whether it is better to survive and make it to next year or spend it all completing this one.

No one is asking anyone to fully bare the economic burden, and club sports can't be compared to Major and College sports that don't have the flexibility. Most club sports are postponing events to later this year, and asking their member gym's to do what is best for their families and communities. It will be interesting to see what happens, but postponing club sport events and championships is not isolated to cheer.

USA Volleyball <click here>
USA Gymnastics <click here>
US Club Soccer <click here >
USA Field Hockey <click here>
USEA Equestrian <click here>

 

[randomactsofcheer]

No one is asking anyone to fully bare the economic burden, and club sports can't be compared to Major and College sports that don't have the flexibility. Most club sports are postponing events to later this year, and asking their member gym's to do what is best for their families and communities. It will be interesting to see what happens, but postponing club sport events and championships is not isolated to cheer.

USA Volleyball <click here>
USA Gymnastics <click here>
US Club Soccer <click here >
USA Field Hockey <click here>
USEA Equestrian <click here>

USAG outright cancelled all events through the middle of May, including MAG and WAG Nationals. The postponed events on the list in the link are international competitions not run by USAG. So far, for T&T Nationals, they’ve waived the State & Regional competition requirements for those areas that hadn’t yet held those competitions. That’s if T&T Nationals doesn’t end up being canceled, as well. The competition season has ended for most gymnasts because of these cancellations.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

While I don't agree with every gym or event producer and their response to the current crisis, I would encourage people to be a little more understanding of others and cut them a little slack. I get that it is "just cheer" (or "just basketball" or "just sports", etc) but as a previous poster pointed out, these are people careers and it affects thousands of people and families up and down the line. Many gyms, EPs, coaches will lose their jobs along with many others connected (like janitors, t-shirt manufacturers, hotel employees, etc.) XYZ company may be twice (or 1000 times) as big as another, but that likely means they are losing twice (or 1000 times) as much money daily and are looking at that same ratio of staff that may get laid off. I get that other industries are hurting, but that doesn't diminish the pain the cheer folks are feeling.

Also, these are crazy times. I have been doing this for more than a quarter century and nothing in that time has remotely prepared us for this situation. It isn't in the gym owner, coach, or event producer handbook anywhere. It is hard to be calm and rational - particularly when you really don't know if you will be closed another 2 weeks, 6 months, or longer.

In my heart of hearts, I think some companies are acting unwisely and likely hurting their long-term best interest to survive short term, but I try to resist criticizing at this point because I don't fully know their situation. If you don't think an event should be held, then I would encourage you not to go and/or tell your gym you aren't going.

Some questions:

How long can a program of your size survive in this situation? How are other similar sized gym owners handling it?

How are you cutting costs? How are you engaging your paying families so they will keep paying?

What are people doing in general to engage people who are already paying but not able to participate?

Sad reality here is that I think a lot of smaller programs can't survive this if it keeps up.

(Disclaimer: You don't have to give exact numbers obviously of what you have in the bank of course or personal things of course.)

 

[AndyT_T]

Guys if you have any surgical masks, N95s, or gloves you stocked up on when this started please please please call your local hospital and offer to donate them and if you can sew consider making DIY masks for surrounding hospitals. Health care professionals on the frontlines are not being adequately protected and the shortage is dire. My hospital will likely run out of N95s by the end of April - and that’s with us using one mask for a week! They’re supposed to be single use only! Please please please if you have access to masks, or know someone that does, donate them to the hospital! My husband and son both have asthma; I can probably afford to catch this and be fine, but they likely cannot.

Colorado has its first confirmed case on March 8th and there’s over 300 confirmed cases now. My ICU is out of ventilators we’re resorting to using the OR vents already. And we’re nowhere near the peak of this. Please I’m begging you if you know someone hoarding boxes of masks they bought peer pressure the sh!t out of them to donate them to a local hospital.

edit: now over 600 cases. Friday the number was 368 and it’s Sunday night now and we’ve broken 600. I’ve now been told we’ll be out of masks by the 10th of April at the absolute latest. Please take this seriously guys.

 

[ImAChauffeuse]

I think some companies are acting unwisely and likely hurting their long-term best interest to survive short term, but I try to resist criticizing at this point because I don't fully know their situation. If you don't think an event should be held, then I would encourage you not to go and/or tell your gym you aren't going.

Are many parents asking for refunds of remaining tuition? I don’t know of anyone asking for refunds at our gym other than questioning whether we will be refunded any competition fees at some point. I am still paying through May as per my contract and I am fine with the coaches engaging the kids online and giving them conditioning, etc. to do at home.

What I don’t want is to feel forced back into the gym for team practices before it’s safe for my child and others, and having to put my kid in that position of being made to feel she’s not a team player (or worry that it would affect her placement at tryouts) if I keep her home. If we are told we have to be back in the gym before the schools even reopen then I would likely pull my child from the program at that point and consider finding somewhere else to go for next season. This may be different for small town gyms where everyone lives nearby, but we live in a densely populated area and people drive from all over. It is too much of a risk and I won’t subject my family to it or continue at a program that would do so.

 

[catlady]

USAG outright cancelled all events through the middle of May, including MAG and WAG Nationals. The postponed events on the list in the link are international competitions not run by USAG. So far, for T&T Nationals, they’ve waived the State & Regional competition requirements for those areas that hadn’t yet held those competitions. That’s if T&T Nationals doesn’t end up being canceled, as well. The competition season has ended for most gymnasts because of these cancellations.

My apologies, the cancellations and postponements were all on the USAG website, and I saw ACRO was postponed in Las Vegas, but thank you for clarifying.

Ultimately, my point still remains, there are several sports postponing events and this approach isn't unique to cheer.

 

[coachrah]

I can see it now.

The "Who is all IN?" emails and group chats about Late Worlds. The pressure.

The "If you're not all in you can be replaced."

Yes, Suzie's mom KNOWS that cheer is not feasible if her business just took a huge hit.

But it hurts to see your kid desperately want something, feel the pressure of not being on the mat, feeling like they're not In The Worlds Team Insider Club, not getting asked to hangout, etc.

So mom feels pressured to do something unwise to make it work. Like putting it on the credit card.

Is every gym going to do this? Prob not. But I can guarantee some will and it's pretty gross.

Exactly why the announcement should come from the National governing body in the country that ICU gave that task and no it is not the USASF. I think it would take a lot of the burden off of coaches and gym owners if the decision came from the top.

 

[randomactsofcheer]

My apologies, the cancellations and postponements were all on the USAG website, and I saw ACRO was postponed in Las Vegas, but thank you for clarifying.

Ultimately, my point still remains, there are several sports postponing events and this approach isn't unique to cheer.

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.

What I don’t want is to feel forced back into the gym for team practices before it’s safe for my child and others, and having to put my kid in that position of being made to feel she’s not a team player (or worry that it would affect her placement at tryouts) if I keep her home. If we are told we have to be back in the gym before the schools even reopen then I would likely pull my child from the program at that point and consider finding somewhere else to go for next season. This may be different for small town gyms where everyone lives nearby, but we live in a densely populated area and people drive from all over. It is too much of a risk and I won’t subject my family to it or continue at a program that would do so.

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.

We live in a heavily impacted area. We are under a stay home order. Everyone, and I mean everyone, that hasn’t already lost their job here is worried they will lose their job. Even “essential” employees. I feel for the gym owner whose doors have been closed now for over a week with no end in sight, with parents who have lost their jobs and/or are scared for the future. Those gym owners don’t want to go to their parents and athletes right now to ask them to book or reschedule their flights, book hotel rooms, and get their hopes up that they are going to a competition in May or June. The future is so uncertain for everyone.

 

[Atxmom]

Guys if you have any surgical masks, N95s, or gloves you stocked up on when this started please please please call your local hospital and offer to donate them and if you can sew consider making DIY masks for surrounding hospitals. Health care professionals on the frontlines are not being adequately protected and the shortage is dire. My hospital will likely run out of N95s by the end of April - and that’s with us using one mask for a week! They’re supposed to be single use only! Please please please if you have access to masks, or know someone that does, donate them to the hospital! My husband and son both have asthma; I can probably afford to catch this and be fine, but they likely cannot.

Colorado has its first confirmed case on March 8th and there’s over 300 confirmed cases now. My ICU is out of ventilators we’re resorting to using the OR vents already. And we’re nowhere near the peak of this. Please I’m begging you if you know someone hoarding boxes of masks they bought peer pressure the sh!t out of them to donate them to a local hospital.

Do you know of any guides to make the DIY masks? Any particular material etc?

 

[BlueCat]

Some questions:

How long can a program of your size survive in this situation? How are other similar sized gym owners handling it?

How are you cutting costs? How are you engaging your paying families so they will keep paying?

What are people doing in general to engage people who are already paying but not able to participate?

Sad reality here is that I think a lot of smaller programs can't survive this if it keeps up.

(Disclaimer: You don't have to give exact numbers obviously of what you have in the bank of course or personal things of course.)

There are many unknowns, but I will answer as best I can.

How long can we survive? That depends on several factors and it may vary depending on location. We intend to continue paying our hourly folks (classes) until at least the end of the month and our salaried folks (team coaches) as long as we possibly can - which is likely at least through April - hopefully through the summer. How long that lasts depends almost entirely on how much revenue we can bring in in the meantime. (Our 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.

How are you cutting costs? That is tough. The gym being closed doesn't really slow down the expenses much. Payroll and rent are most of our expenses, and those mostly don't change unless we lay off a bunch of people. Entry fees and travel expenses for coaches had basically already been paid out and we haven't gotten a good response on when/if those are going to be returned.

How are we engaging the customers? We are doing everything we can, it just takes a while to ramp that up. Online classes, drill videos, zoom calls, etc mostly like other gyms. We have an advantage in that we have a large staff - especially when you consider all of the locations, so we will end up with a pretty large schedule/library of stuff to choose from.

I am not trying to compare our financial situation to anyone else's. I am certain that some have it better and far more have it much worse. I hope that every cheer gym can survive, but I fear that many will not.

 

[Eyes On The Prize]

How are we engaging the customers? We are doing everything we can, it just takes a while to ramp that up. Online classes, drill videos, zoom calls, etc mostly like other gyms. We have an advantage in that we have a large staff - especially when you consider all of the locations, so we will end up with a pretty large schedule/library of stuff to choose from.

Would you ever consider setting up a subscription-based video library with cheer specific training/conditioning videos that athletes could subscribe to for a monthly fee? At home conditioning workouts, follow along drill sequences, programming that caters to each level, etc. Kinda like the online workout platforms we're seeing pop up now from beach body, peleton, golds gym, etc.

Obviously it would take time and money to set up, produce, and distribute, but the income it could produce could be substantial in the future. Especially if you opened it up to athletes at other gyms or rec/school teams or ones who have retired.

I feel like your gym has the reputation, man power, and the wealth of knowledge/experience to really do something great like that.

 

[BlueCat]

Would you ever consider setting up a subscription-based video library with cheer specific training/conditioning videos that athletes could subscribe to for a monthly fee? At home conditioning workouts, follow along drill sequences, programming that caters to each level, etc. Kinda like the online workout platforms we're seeing pop up now from beach body, peleton, golds gym, etc.

Obviously it would take time and money to set up, produce, and distribute, but the income it could produce could be substantial in the future. Especially if you opened it up to athletes at other gyms or rec/school teams or ones who have retired.

I feel like your gym has the reputation, man power, and the wealth of knowledge/experience to really do something great like that.

Possibly. We will end up with a pretty substantial library over the next few weeks. We would need to go back and polish them up quite a bit for that, but we will have a LOT of content if this continues.