Focusing on the Business of Cheerleading & Dance
US Finals has announced dates and locations for 5 of their 6 championship sites in 2010. Kansas City and Orlando have joined Cincinnati, Las Vegas, and Virginia. The South Central site, formerly Oklahoma City, has yet to be announced.
The 2008-09 season marked a turning point for cheerleading and dance, end of the season championships. Varsity Brands and friends started the International All Levels Championship (IALC) with 5 championship sites while JAM Brands joined with the Nation’s Leading Cheer Companies (NLCC) to convert the one site Final Destination into the 4 location US Finals. Over 1500 teams attended these events, including over 600 teams making the trip to Virginia Beach for US Finals, making it one of the 5 largest events of the season. We expect these events to grow significantly next season because programs are now aware of them. Last season it seems as though most people found out about these events when they received an invitation, but didn’t attend since they weren’t planning on attending a similar event. This season more teams are aware of them and already planning on attending.
Based on this season US Finals is the winner, but it is way too early to make a call on which event will become the more prestigious event. Around 550 teams attended the 4 IALC events held this season while just over 1000 attended the 4 US Finals events. To be fair we must point out IALC had to cancel the San Antonio event due to Swine Flu concerns. We don’t know how many teams were registered for San Antonio, but will make 2 assumptions. One, given Varsity’s, specifically NCA’s, presence in Texas it would have been pretty well attended. Two, it would not have been large enough (450 teams) for IALC to be larger than US Finals.
International All Levels Championship
US Finals
The post season for the Spirit Industry kicked off last weekend with the International All Levels Championships in Atlanta and Los Angeles. The Varsity Brands’ IALC will also have events in Atlantic City, NJ, San Antonio, TX, and Columbus, OH the first weekend of May. Jammy and friends will kick off the US Finals this weekend in Oklahoma City and Las Vegas. US Finals will have an event in Cincinnati next weekend and finish in Virginia Beach the first weekend of May. The main event, the Cheerleading and Dance Worlds, will be held April 25-26 at Walt Disney World.
It will be interesting to see how the IALC does in it’s first season and how US Finals does this season given the changes made in the transition from Final Destination. It will also be interesting to see how many teams attend on At-Large bids, given the economy.