Its purpose is to support a contest rather than to be one

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that what makes something a sport is the contest at its centre, and that cheerleading was built around a different purpose. Its role, in the setting that gave it its name, is to support a team and to work a crowd during someone else's game. The routine exists to hold attention between periods of play, and its success is measured by whether the crowd responds rather than by whether an opponent has been outperformed. On this view that purpose is definitive, because it determines both what the activity is for and what counts as doing it well. Proponents accept that competitive cheerleading exists and is contested, but argue that this confirms the distinction rather than removing it. When squads compete against one another they are doing something genuinely different from leading a crowd, and the fact that a competitive version had to be created in order to produce a contest shows that the original activity did not contain one. They draw an analogy with marching band and competitive dance, which also hold championships without most people regarding the underlying activity as a sport. Defenders of the position usually stress what they are not saying. They are not disputing that cheerleaders are athletes, that the training is demanding or that the risks are real. They argue that athleticism is a property of people rather than a definition of sport, and that many demanding physical pursuits sit outside the category without being diminished by it. Dance, acrobatics and stunt performance are all skilled and all dangerous, and all are understood as something other than sport. On this account cheerleading is not a sport, because its defining aim is to support and entertain rather than to contest an outcome.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that the argument defines cheerleading by its history and then draws a conclusion about its present. Competitive squads now train for and compete in championships, and the sideline role is for many participants incidental; a definition that excludes the version people actually compete in is describing something else. They also question whether purpose is the right criterion at all, since activities change what they are for without changing category, and since several recognised sports began as display, drill or entertainment. Others point out that the concession about athletes makes the position largely terminological: if cheerleaders train, compete and get injured as athletes do, little of substance hangs on withholding the word.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics object that purpose is not the criterion it is treated as here, since activities change what they are for while remaining in the same category. [Rejecting P2] They argue that the sideline role is incidental for competitive squads, so defining the activity by it describes only one branch. [Rejecting P3] They reply that dance and acrobatics lack organised competition against opponents, which competitive cheerleading has. [Rejecting C] They conclude that the position rests on the activity's history rather than on what it has become.