Think back to any high school or college sporting event, and you’ll probably picture the tumbles, pyramids, and tosses of cheer squads hyping up the crowd. But the sport is no longer just confined to American schools. With the rise of competitive cheer and the media attention brought on by shows such as Netflix’s “Cheer,” it is clear that the sport’s importance is expanding in the public eye.
In the United States, the sport is growing 18% annually. It has also broken out of its American home. Australia, for instance, saw a steady 25-30% increase in cheer participation over the past decade, while cheer scenes in China, Norway, Japan, France, and Austria, among many others, seeing remarkable growth as well.
Yet despite cheer’s long history dating back over a century, it may surprise you to know that it was only officially recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee in 2021. Especially after the controversy (read fiasco) that was breakdancing in the 2024 Paris lineup, it is clearly time for cheer to take its first stunts on the Olympic stage.
Nevertheless, its far from time to break out the celebratory pom-poms. ICO recognition is only the first step of the notoriously difficult Olympic selection process, and the criteria for new sports is incredibly strict. First, a sport must showcase global participation, widespread adoption, governance, competition structure, and spectator engagement, alongside a few other key metrics. With a strong presence in over 100 countries, cheer has the international criteria covered, but it still needs to prove spectator engagement.
Once a sport is selected, it is remanded to subcommittees to determine the exact competition format. Cheer’s competitive scene is relatively young, so we could expect the ICO to deliberate for years, likely taking cues from other international competitions featuring the sport such as the 2022 World Games. If every step in the long process were started right now, the earliest we would even see Olympic cheer would be 2032 in Brisbane. Unfortunately, given the backlash to Raygun and the inclusion of breakdancing, it is unlikely that cheer will be able to skip over steps to the process amid the Olympics’ latest attempt to modernize.
Regardless, despite the years of red tape ahead, cheer’s Olympic journey is well underway — and when it finally arrives, you can bet it will stick the landing.
