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Starting a half year program at your gym
As a business owner, look at your monthly revenue based off of tuition from your all star teams. Could your gym benefit from an extra one hundred dollars a month? What about three hundred? Five hundred? If your answer is yes, then a half year program could greatly benefit your program.
First and foremost, half year cheer teams must be viewed in a completely different mindset than your year round all star programs. It must be a separate program and a separate mindset for coaches and owners. Of course, price is going to vary based off of the economic situation of your community- but half year should be priced lower than year round cheer. Don’t look at it as how much money you could make if you charged regular all star price, look at it as how much money you could make since right now you aren’t making any at all off of half year. A new team bringing in a profit margin of one hundred dollars is going to be better than not having an extra team at all.
Typically, half year programs are created for three types of athletes. Athlete type one is the recreational or high school cheerleaders who have just ended their cheer season and want to continue to participate in competitive cheerleading. Athlete type two would be those who can’t afford your regular all star program and so wait and participate for a half season instead. Athlete type three would be the brand new cheerleader with no experience who wants to give it a try.
Half year can be a challenge. Remember, it is an extremely shortened season without much time to work on actual skill building. What you see is going to be what you get. Pick your competitions wisely (usually one or two competitions are more than enough) and make sure you pick your staff wisely. Choose coaches that are very patient but efficient. Coaches will have to utilize every moment of practice time and be very well organized when it comes to planning practices ahead of time to keep things efficient.
At my gym, we gear our half year team towards recreational cheerleaders who are ending their season. In our area, pop warner is huge and it ends in December. So we create our teams to start and run from January through April to help complement the recreational programs in the area. Every gym is going to be different and it may take some time to figure out what is exactly right for your gym- but don’t be afraid to take a chance. Start small, low cost and see what type of interest you get. Within that group of kids we also do get first time cheerleaders and kids who cheer half year due to the lower cost.
One of the problems that we face is that the recreational programs rules are very different from the USASF all star level grid. Meaning most of the recreational girls expect to be able to be on a team with level 2 and 3 stunt skills, but the majority of them do not tumble. If your team is primarily coming over from a recreational program or a pop warner program- the girls may be used to doing lots of stunting with little to no tumbling. Assess the group you have and see what you can do to make it successful.
When creating your half year program make sure to look at your market and the demographics of your area. Also look at your overhead cost for paying a coach for the team in regards to what you need to charge. See if uniform rental is a possibility, or don’t require practice clothing. Try to cut the costs just to get kids in the door. At the end of the day, our goal should be to grow the sport. As coaches and leaders we must strive to gain national recognition for all of the positives that all star cheerleading brings into our athletes’ lives. However, before we can gain that national recognition we need local recognition; and half year teams can only spread good and positive within the cheer community. The more kids we have cheering, the more our sport can become.
If you have any questions or need help getting your half year program started please feel free to contact me. Half year has not only grown our program, but given so much back to it in amazing ways.
Sydney McBride
[email protected]
Starting a half year program at your gym
As a business owner, look at your monthly revenue based off of tuition from your all star teams. Could your gym benefit from an extra one hundred dollars a month? What about three hundred? Five hundred? If your answer is yes, then a half year program could greatly benefit your program.
First and foremost, half year cheer teams must be viewed in a completely different mindset than your year round all star programs. It must be a separate program and a separate mindset for coaches and owners. Of course, price is going to vary based off of the economic situation of your community- but half year should be priced lower than year round cheer. Don’t look at it as how much money you could make if you charged regular all star price, look at it as how much money you could make since right now you aren’t making any at all off of half year. A new team bringing in a profit margin of one hundred dollars is going to be better than not having an extra team at all.
Typically, half year programs are created for three types of athletes. Athlete type one is the recreational or high school cheerleaders who have just ended their cheer season and want to continue to participate in competitive cheerleading. Athlete type two would be those who can’t afford your regular all star program and so wait and participate for a half season instead. Athlete type three would be the brand new cheerleader with no experience who wants to give it a try.
Half year can be a challenge. Remember, it is an extremely shortened season without much time to work on actual skill building. What you see is going to be what you get. Pick your competitions wisely (usually one or two competitions are more than enough) and make sure you pick your staff wisely. Choose coaches that are very patient but efficient. Coaches will have to utilize every moment of practice time and be very well organized when it comes to planning practices ahead of time to keep things efficient.
At my gym, we gear our half year team towards recreational cheerleaders who are ending their season. In our area, pop warner is huge and it ends in December. So we create our teams to start and run from January through April to help complement the recreational programs in the area. Every gym is going to be different and it may take some time to figure out what is exactly right for your gym- but don’t be afraid to take a chance. Start small, low cost and see what type of interest you get. Within that group of kids we also do get first time cheerleaders and kids who cheer half year due to the lower cost.
One of the problems that we face is that the recreational programs rules are very different from the USASF all star level grid. Meaning most of the recreational girls expect to be able to be on a team with level 2 and 3 stunt skills, but the majority of them do not tumble. If your team is primarily coming over from a recreational program or a pop warner program- the girls may be used to doing lots of stunting with little to no tumbling. Assess the group you have and see what you can do to make it successful.
When creating your half year program make sure to look at your market and the demographics of your area. Also look at your overhead cost for paying a coach for the team in regards to what you need to charge. See if uniform rental is a possibility, or don’t require practice clothing. Try to cut the costs just to get kids in the door. At the end of the day, our goal should be to grow the sport. As coaches and leaders we must strive to gain national recognition for all of the positives that all star cheerleading brings into our athletes’ lives. However, before we can gain that national recognition we need local recognition; and half year teams can only spread good and positive within the cheer community. The more kids we have cheering, the more our sport can become.
If you have any questions or need help getting your half year program started please feel free to contact me. Half year has not only grown our program, but given so much back to it in amazing ways.
Sydney McBride
[email protected]
