I was recently asked by an Athlete's Connection reader why there was a specification of Northeast in front of Nationals for the last installment of Sideline Superheroes? Her question was, if it's a national competition, doesn't that include the entire nation and not just the Northeastern part. This is a valid question, that I will try and shed some light on.

I mentioned before that there are several different companies that provide services for the cheerleading industry. Each of them with a slightly different focus. As competitive cheerleading really began coming on the scene, more gyms began opening to meet the needs of all the kids who wanted to participate in the activity. It began mostly with athletes who wanted help improving their skills for their school team and evolved into a thing of its own.

Naturally, the more gyms that emerged, the more they needed somewhere to compete (since that is the primary purpose for a private cheerleading program). So several companies, whose main focus was to host competitions, began springing up.

In a regular season, there are multiple opportunities to perform and it's up to individual programs how rigorous the schedule will be. Parents and athletes can decide how many hours a week they want to devote to practice, how many competitions they want to attend, whether or not they want to travel or only do local competitions and many other choices. Based on what they're looking for, there is probably a gym to suit their needs.

The same is true for the gyms themselves. Based on the type of program they want to create, they mix up their competitive season among different companies or stick with just one. Some travel, while others stay local. Most programs have more than one team, so they can even vary it from team to team.

It's worth mentioning also, that not all companies choose to do this. There are companies that have a much lighter competition menu, including only one national event. Organizations like this generally have a different focus, in example, providing summer instruction to get school teams ready for their season of cheering at sporting games.

Which brings me back around to the initial question. For some companies, the national competition is more about being the final competition of the season. There are many national level (a.k.a. season finale) competitions that happen all around the country. Different companies host different events, mostly to accommodate the travel issue and to provide more opportunities to perform.

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