Mega Gym Putting Their Teams Up Against Each Other

[PopRockMomma]

Our local gym has several locations - three within 15 miles of each other with girls who go to the same schools. (The other two are still easily within driving distance - probably about 30 miles.) They consistently have two or three teams in the same level that compete against each other at almost every competition. Certainly not great for "team building" when you have parents from your own gym and sometimes even own neighborhood rooting for your girls to lose! First of all, is this common? I tried to pay attention in Dallas and didn't see it very often. At the awards ceremony, the announcer obviously hadn't seen it very often because he was only announcing the gym name and not the team. The girls didn't know who had won what! Secondly - do experienced cheer parents think it's smart and the right thing to do? Why wouldn't a gym maximize their talent within a level and consolidate at one location? Help me understand why this is good or make me feel better about wanting to find another option!!!! It feels like the gym just wants to make money with the most number of athletes they can get and doesn't care about how the teams do!!!!

 

[SL&AM]

Our local gym has several locations - three within 15 miles of each other with girls who go to the same schools. (The other two are still easily within driving distance - probably about 30 miles.) They consistently have two or three teams in the same level that compete against each other at almost every competition. Certainly not great for "team building" when you have parents from your own gym and sometimes even own neighborhood rooting for your girls to lose! First of all, is this common? I tried to pay attention in Dallas and didn't see it very often. At the awards ceremony, the announcer obviously hadn't seen it very often because he was only announcing the gym name and not the team. The girls didn't know who had won what! Secondly - do experienced cheer parents think it's smart and the right thing to do? Why wouldn't a gym maximize their talent within a level and consolidate at one location? Help me understand why this is good or make me feel better about wanting to find another option!!!! It feels like the gym just wants to make money with the most number of athletes they can get and doesn't care about how the teams do!!!!

I think it's unvoidable in some cases especially with mega gyms. Take CEA World's teams for example---they have 2 Large Senior, 2 Coed Senior, and I think 2 Medium All Girl? There is no way to really fix that. In our area, there are only a few gyms who have multiple locations and I don't see it at the competitions my daughters teams attend.

 

[PopRockMomma]

I think it's unvoidable in some cases especially with mega gyms. Take CEA World's teams for example---they have 2 Large Senior, 2 Coed Senior, and I think 2 Medium All Girl? There is no way to really fix that. In our area, there are only a few gyms who have multiple locations and I don't see it at the competitions my daughters teams attend.

Thanks - I was hoping that wasn't going to be the case! Our gym doesn't have Worlds teams that compete against each other - just the lower level teams. 2 at Mini1, 2 at Small Y2, 3 at Small Y3, 3 at Small Y1........etc.

 

[TheVipersMom]

We compete against the small Y3's all the time,

And the Y2's

NCA Y3 awards made me laugh because the two were against each other and they only announced the gym and not the team even us from our gym was like "which one?!" Lol

I love woodlands and so many people there have been so awesome to us but I would be super frustrated to have to compete against the teams that I'm suppose to love all season long.




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[SL&AM]

Thanks - I was hoping that wasn't going to be the case! Our gym doesn't have Worlds teams that compete against each other - just the lower level teams. 2 at Mini1, 2 at Small Y2, 3 at Small Y3, 3 at Small Y1........etc.

It seems like the best thing to do would be meet up at the larger comps and then compete on different circuits.

 

[PopRockMomma]

It seems like the best thing to do would be meet up at the larger comps and then compete on different circuits.

That would be great but our coaches have teams at multiple gyms so they have to be at the same competition.

Seems like it's something we either are willing to deal with and if not, plan to move to option B.

 

[SL&AM]

That would be great but our coaches have teams at multiple gyms so they have to be at the same competition.

Seems like it's something we either are willing to deal with and if not, plan to move to option B.

I'd likely move to Plan B.

 

[FlexyTumblerMom]

I wouldn't like it at all if I was a parent at those gyms - sounds like it would lead to a lot of potential drama - sure most would handle it fine, but even a little bit of hurt feelings or someone saying the wrong thing could get blown out of proportion fast.

Ideally a gym like this would only attend comps as a full gym where they'd be guaranteed to not be against each other, and then do different comps for different teams for the local/smaller comps.

 

[BBinNCsMom]

I think CEA Raleigh tries to avoid going to comps where we would be competing against the other gym locations but because we are mostly in North Carolina and VA sometimes it is unavoidable. There are only so many regional competitions. But it honestly hasn't happened that much this year (this is our first year at CEA so I don't have a history on it)

What I think would upset me would be if you had, for example, two large Y2 teams at the same location and they competed against each other at competitions. I could see that creating drama. There is an example of that (not Y2) at one of the CEA locations. I'm not sure how they are handling that as it is new this season.


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[PopRockMomma]

We compete against the small Y3's all the time,

And the Y2's

NCA Y3 awards made me laugh because the two were against each other and they only announced the gym and not the team even us from our gym was like "which one?!" Lol

I love woodlands and so many people there have been so awesome to us but I would be super frustrated to have to compete against the teams that I'm suppose to love all season long.




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I didn't know how the results would end up, but I was 100% sure that your Y3 team would win. They were excellent and I know you are proud of them. That awards ceremony was bad and embarrassing for both of our teams. Yes. Frustrated is the right word.

 

[TheVipersMom]

I didn't know how the results would end up, but I was 100% sure that your Y3 team would win. They were excellent and I know you are proud of them. That awards ceremony was bad and embarrassing for both of our teams. Yes. Frustrated is the right word.

Thank you! I wasn't sure they would win with their jumps and pyramid issues day 2. I actually thought we would get 2nd or 3rd. It was nice to see the one gym with y3 (avengers) at Cheerpower and not have to see your other two. Lol we have seen y'all all at most all of our competitions.

Also seeing we were against both lieutenants and corporals when the NCA schedule came out I was a little not excited after seeing all 3 of them at ACA! They are all awesome and they have been great competition this year.

Because of woodlands we have competed against more small y3's this season than our j3 has competed against j3's. The amount of teams in that division is insane. I think it's incredible that woodlands can field 3 small y3's and still field a large y3. I know they are different locations but they all are in the same general area. But I know if We cheered there I couldn't help but think the large y3 had the upper hand since they never had to go against y'all! It sucks competing against your teams! I was hoping for solid performances from both teams so all the top teams could be Texas teams. I feel like we help make each other better and I wouldn't want it any other way'


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[Cheerfun2]

We are at a mega gym, but we haven't competed against any of our other locations' teams until this weekend. I think our "brand" handles it pretty well, but I admit I didn't love it. We were cheering for all of our teams from every location all weekend, but then it was just well, HARD, during the divisions when we were head to head. The "mother" gym beat us in every instance, fair and square...but,well, you know how it feels to lose. I'd rather lose to a faceless gym that I can do mental voodoo against in my head. Doesn't seem right to hex someone wearing our logo!

 

[MyKidzCheer]

We too go to a mega gym and they did a great job this season of putting teams in different divisions. There are so many divisions available at large comps but at the smaller regionals we sometimes got melted together large and small coed and all girl etc. on one hand it's a drag but I would also rather compete against our own brand than nobody at all.

 

[CookieMomster]

We're part of a Mega gym (3 locations). It's unavoidable sometimes. They try to have the teams compete in separate divisions (i.e. Large and small) but sometimes our teams compete against each other. Even in our main location we have 2 M1 and 2 Y2 teams (plus our other 2 locations each have a M1 and Y2 team) so we can have 4 teams from our gym as a whole in each division if it's not broken up by A, AA, AAA divisions. Sometimes they're in the same division. We don't really have a say what division we get placed in. The EP tends to decide.

We've also had it where they announce awards and they don't announce the team name and we're left wondering who won. lol It's just part of being a mega gym. We don't really have any rivalry. We treat any of our teams as a win for the gym as a whole and don't focus on the individual team.

As for why we don't consolidate our teams. 2 of our gyms are 30min apart but during rush hour traffic it's longer. It's easier to travel to the gym closest to you because they're in different cities. Our 3rd gym is 5hrs away. Since our area has the larger comp's they come here 4 times a year for showcase, Nationals and 2 other large comp's.

 

[WEmom1210]

That would be great but our coaches have teams at multiple gyms so they have to be at the same competition.

Seems like it's something we either are willing to deal with and if not, plan to move to option B.

This season Woodlands did try to send the different locations to different competitions.
But when it comes to certain nationals …NCA or ACA …all location will be there since those are the big National Competitions. It was worse last year when all locations were sent to all the same competitions.
I just look at them as another team in our division that we see a lot, but since they are part of our gym ..I root for them to get 2nd.
Competing against our own gym doesn’t really bother me that much.