All-Star Interesting

[ScottyB]

I didn't mean to suggest that school coaches are necessarily well-compensated. However, in MOST cases, the salary - meager though it may be - comes from taxes/school budget and not directly from the "fees" paid for cheerleading.

None of this is a knock on school cheer at all. However, comparing the marginal costs to the athlete for each is a little misleading sometimes.

for sure. just was contributing to the overall comparison conversation. heck if the people behind the letter want school cheer involvement, i think you will find a lot of support from coaches like myself

 

[mariahnicole1216]

Also, many gyms have non-travel programs (all star prep in our area) that involve far less travel and clothing expense.

I completely understand what you're saying which is why I mentioned that I know things are a little different when the owner is in charge of keeping the lights on, instead of the town.

But what I've quoted is where I think a big problem lies. Very few athletes want to walk into a big name gym, realize they can't afford the whole shebang, sign up for the prep team, and then spend all season watching their peers travel to Indy, Texas, Florida etc and get all of the beautiful practice wear. Additionally, at least in my experience, the prep teams are not coached to the same level that other teams in the gym are (this is another whole issue in itself). So those athletes either find a different place to cheer or are turned off to the sport in general.

If everything was toned down a little bit, and the culture was gradually changed to focus more athletics and less on Instagram, a lot of these issues could be mended. But alas, that is not necessarily an issue pertaining to gym owners and EPs so now i'm just ranting. :deadhorse:

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

On the prep angle of the conversation:

I know it is in theory supposed to be the low-cost alternative.

But I have seen some parents here post that in their experience, it has been similarly expensive and time-intensive (with a less expensive uniform but similar practice schedule and similar number of comps.)

 

[123jump4!]

Prep used to be level 1, 2, 3. Now it's level 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2. It's not really an option for higher level athletes.

 

[East78]

With Champions league coming out and offering comps that meet all the criteria laid out from Saturday, will teams now attend? Im guessing no, they will still end up at Cheersport, NCA and the other same comps they complained about. In the end that rebate will be too hard to give up.

 

[catlady]

@BlueCat if you wouldn't mind answering, I have an outside the box thinking type of question. At the gym we attend things such as athlete competition fees, uniforms, and warm up money goes through our gym first and then is paid out to the individual vendors. Five or ten years ago, I could understand how this would be an administration nightmare, but if each customer set up an account and paid those dollars directly to the vendor instead of hitting you all first, wouldn't that be a huge tax savings for you and your customer?

 

[XtremeWpg]

@BlueCat if you wouldn't mind answering, I have an outside the box thinking type of question. At the gym we attend things such as athlete competition fees, uniforms, and warm up money goes through our gym first and then is paid out to the individual vendors. Five or ten years ago, I could understand how this would be an administration nightmare, but if each customer set up an account and paid those dollars directly to the vendor instead of hitting you all first, wouldn't that be a huge tax savings for you and your customer?

The problem would be ensuring each athletes family did this on time. If you have a gym of hundreds of athletes, the time you’d spend chasing people to compete it....yuck

 

[BlueCat]

@BlueCat if you wouldn't mind answering, I have an outside the box thinking type of question. At the gym we attend things such as athlete competition fees, uniforms, and warm up money goes through our gym first and then is paid out to the individual vendors. Five or ten years ago, I could understand how this would be an administration nightmare, but if each customer set up an account and paid those dollars directly to the vendor instead of hitting you all first, wouldn't that be a huge tax savings for you and your customer?

We have done this with uniforms already. Uniforms have been huge logistical nightmare for us for years with inventory, fitting, delivery, storage, etc. being massive headaches and thousands of man-hours of work over the years. Now our awesome vendor is doing the majority of that for us. There have been some understandable hiccups the first year as we switch that process over, but we are able to spend much more energy on the cheer stuff, which has been great. (Customers just cannot begin to understand how big a challenge getting uniforms, practice wear, etc. designed, prototyped, redesigned, approved, fitted, ordered, produced, quality checked, shipped, inventoried, re-shipped, counted, labeled, distributed, re-fitted, returned, etc for fluctuating rosters and growing children can be.)

I doubt the EPs want the craziness of accounts receivable and collections for all of the athletes. They just want one big check/payment wrapped up in a tidy bow and let the gyms deal with chasing parents down for all of the entry fees. We already have to chase down tuition, so entry fees isn't really that much additional work. (You would be amazed at how many people don't pay and then expect to get their service anyway.). In fairness, gyms often delay payments to EPs as well, but this is likely because the entry fees haven't all been collected and gyms can't essentially "loan" the athletes the money for entry fees hoping they pay later.

I don't see how there would be any tax savings, to be honest. I'm not sure how you mean that. Pass-through expenses like entry fees don't incur additional tax. If you collect $1000 in entry fees and pay out $1000 in entry fees, there wouldn't be any net income to tax.

There would be savings for the gym on credit card fees I suppose (2-3% typically) , but that would just likely be added to the EP side.

 

[catlady]

We have done this with uniforms already. Uniforms have been huge logistical nightmare for us for years with inventory, fitting, delivery, storage, etc. being massive headaches and thousands of man-hours of work over the years. Now our awesome vendor is doing the majority of that for us. There have been some understandable hiccups the first year as we switch that process over, but we are able to spend much more energy on the cheer stuff, which has been great. (Customers just cannot begin to understand how big a challenge getting uniforms, practice wear, etc. designed, prototyped, redesigned, approved, fitted, ordered, produced, quality checked, shipped, inventoried, re-shipped, counted, labeled, distributed, re-fitted, returned, etc for fluctuating rosters and growing children can be.)

I doubt the EPs want the craziness of accounts receivable and collections for all of the athletes. They just want one big check/payment wrapped up in a tidy bow and let the gyms deal with chasing parents down for all of the entry fees. We already have to chase down tuition, so entry fees isn't really that much additional work. (You would be amazed at how many people don't pay and then expect to get their service anyway.). In fairness, gyms often delay payments to EPs as well, but this is likely because the entry fees haven't all been collected and gyms can't essentially "loan" the athletes the money for entry fees hoping they pay later.

I don't see how there would be any tax savings, to be honest. I'm not sure how you mean that. Pass-through expenses like entry fees don't incur additional tax. If you collect $1000 in entry fees and pay out $1000 in entry fees, there wouldn't be any net income to tax.

There would be savings for the gym on credit card fees I suppose (2-3% typically) , but that would just likely be added to the EP side.

It was the pass-through expenses that I was wondering if they were getting a double hit on taxes. I know our gym collects for Summit and others require their customers to pay through the Varsity portal. I wasn't sure if there was a benefit to collect one way versus the other. Thank you for your great response.

 

[Sterling von Shimmer]

everyone has a national champion and there are so many excess divisions because the EPs recognized the customer service aspect of these competitions (I mean they are run by the same people who forced the trophy generation...)

if more teams come home as winners from your competition: they are happier, they think their money was well spent, they tell their friends and family about the event which lifts the brand up each time, they get a trophy to put up as well as a banner, and they probably (99%) are going to come back the next year to compete (and pay) again.

I call it the “child’s beauty pageant” effect. Like how every kid at a child’s beauty pageant gets something even if they’re dead last (i.e. “4th place runner-up in the tiny miss butterfly level 1 division” or what have you). The idea seems to be that if you give a mouse a cookie, it’ll come back to your cheer comp again next year. And sadly I don’t think that trend is going anywhere. This is a business and for every strong team that wants to legit feel like they accomplished something, there are a dozen more teams that don’t have a shot at finals and just want to go home with something, period. And Varsity WILL cater to them, like it or not. Just like child beauty pageants will cater to moms who will pay good money to be told their kid isn’t ugly. Except at least with cheer you’re actually rewarding something other than questionable parenting skills.

This has been disillusioning me for awhile now. You can see the “money first” approach in USA big time. It used to be a big deal to get invited to USA Nationals. You needed a 90 to qualify and the only divisions they had were size divisions (as opposed to the difficulty divisions they offer now as well). Now the qualifying score has been lowered to 75 BEFORE deductions, which is a farce. USA makes it as easy as possible for teams to qualify because they want your money that bad. There’s no prestige to it anymore which is why I think a lot of west coast teams are ditching USA for UCA and the larger turnout and sink-or-swim divisions they offer. You REALLY feel like you win something there. But even at UCA those white jackets seem to be omnipresent. With the money we’re paying UCA, they could at least embroider the division title on them. Make them special again. Winning D1 Varsity is a little different than winning JV Game Day. I don’t care how little sense it makes logistics-wise. I NEVER DO.

 

[quietmom]

I have a problem with the entry fees for the competitions. Here's why.

I have a friend who's a single mom with multiple kids. She has a little girl with a severe disability with a life threatening condition. This little girl was on a special needs/cheer abilities team.

Due to insurance and other costs, the gym charges $25 a month for the tuition for this team. That's the standard in this area, and I know of other gyms that do this too for the same reason.

During the months of November to April, the team was averaging two competitions a month. When you add in gas, food, entry fees, and parking, this was costing her about $150 - $200 a month just so she could get her daughter to the competitions and fed. She also had to find child care for her other children.

Half of the expense was on entry fees and parking. I personally paid for her to be able to get her daughter to cheer cheersport nationals, and I have no ties to the team.

This mom couldn't just have her kid go with another team mate and her family. This child has severe needs. Mom needed to be there.

While $200 a month is nothing compared to what others here pay, for this family, it broke them. The coach, gym, and other families did a lot to help and support them. But the mom decided to not return for the next year as it was too costly.

Having a disabled child is expensive. When the medical issues are severe, there are a lot of costs. Your financial priorities go to transportation, copays, and things related to their care.

My point in all of this is that the costs are going up all around and are harming all the participants. Many families can't afford for their children to participate because of the cost.

 

[Natalia5]

everyone has a national champion and there are so many excess divisions because the EPs recognized the customer service aspect of these competitions (I mean they are run by the same people who forced the trophy generation...)

if more teams come home as winners from your competition: they are happier, they think their money was well spent, they tell their friends and family about the event which lifts the brand up each time, they get a trophy to put up as well as a banner, and they probably (99%) are going to come back the next year to compete (and pay) again.

Exactly, Oh, I totally get it from the business point view too. I mean if people are cool with it why not be the one to offer or sell it to them. It's like don't hate the player hate the game at this point KWIM I sometimes find myself looking around at these comps like man I wish I had thought of this....LOL I wouldn't have to wait for a billion dollar lotto jackpot if I could carve out a niche that I could monopolize. JS

 

[SparkleSpankies]

focus more athletics and less on Instagram

LOL

 

[BlueCat]

If everything was toned down a little bit, and the culture was gradually changed to focus more athletics and less on Instagram, a lot of these issues could be mended. But alas, that is not necessarily an issue pertaining to gym owners and EPs so now i'm just ranting.

We aren't claiming to be perfect in this regard, but we (and many other "big" gyms) are moving towards a more athletic look. It won't happen overnight, and every single post, message, or pic we put out may not fit perfectly along that path, but we are legitimately trying to head in that general direction.

 

[alpaca]

I just got a "block schedule" that tells me that CP may be performing anytime from 7am to 11pm. This is not a block schedule. This is just telling me the days that the event is on.