Cheerleading!!! Monopoly Business? Increasing Popularity? High Injury Rates? Is It A Sport? Private Equity? Olympics? Rival of Dance & Gymnastics? WWE Comparison? Laurie Hogan Joins to Discuss!

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Nationwide, just over a million children, mostly girls, participate in cheer each year (some estimates are even higher), more than the number who play softball or lacrosse. And almost every part of that world is dominated by a single company: Varsity Spirit. It’s hard to cheer at the youth, high school or collegiate level without putting money in the company’s pocket. Varsity operates summer camps where children learn to do stunts and perform; it hosts events where they compete; it sells pom-poms they shake and uniforms they wear on the sidelines of high school and college football games. Each year, Varsity ships 4.6 million pieces of apparel, from $80 leopard-print “Cheer Mom” fleeces to custom uniforms covered in Swarovski crystals.   Critics like Matt Stoller, an antitrust expert and the research director of the American Economic Liberties Project, claim that the cheer giant is a monopolist whose dominance in its area rivals that of Google in tech and has had negative impacts for participants and their families. Varsity, based in Memphis, generates hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, with gross profit margins at times topping 40 percent, making the company a cash cow for a series of private-equity owners. Parents have reported spending upward of $10,000 a year per child in competitive cheer, with Varsity controlling, by some estimates, more than 80 percent of that market." This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous, and Popular." The author is David Gauvey Herbert. You can read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/magazine/cheerleading-jeff-webb.html Laurie Hogan joins Zac & Don to discuss the business and growing popularity of cheerleading across America.