The training and the risk are those of an athlete, whatever it is called

The argument

A second argument for this position sets definitions aside and looks at what participants actually do. Proponents describe a training load comparable to any competitive discipline: conditioning, strength work, flexibility, repeated drilling of elements, and the coordination of a group whose members must move in exact relation to one another under time pressure. The skills themselves are athletic skills. Tumbling requires the power and air awareness of a gymnast; stunting requires one person to balance another overhead and a group to catch someone falling from height; a dismount that goes wrong lands on a head or a neck. Proponents argue that risk of this kind is a clear marker of an athletic activity rather than a performing one. Performers in a theatre are not routinely carried off with concussions and broken bones, and the precautions cheerleading squads take, including spotters, matting, graded progressions and rules about what may be attempted, are the precautions of a sport. On this view an activity that needs a safety regime borrowed from gymnastics is already functioning as a sport whatever the programme calls it. The argument closes on what proponents regard as the real objection. Doubts about cheerleading, they suggest, rest on how it looks rather than on what it demands: the uniforms, the smiling, the association with crowd support and with young women performing in front of men's teams. None of these, they argue, has anything to do with whether an activity is athletic, and plenty of recognised sports involve costume, presentation and a performance for spectators. On this account cheerleading is a sport because the people doing it train, compete and get injured exactly as athletes do, and the hesitation comes from appearances rather than from the activity.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that difficulty and danger are not what make something a sport. Circus acrobatics, stunt work and ballet all demand comparable training and carry comparable risk, and nobody classes them as sports; what distinguishes a sport is a contest with an outcome, not the physical cost of taking part. They also suggest the argument conflates competitive squads with the activity most people mean, since the sideline role that gives cheerleading its name involves neither a contest nor comparable demands. On the question of appearance, critics respond that pointing to prejudice may explain why some people resist the label without showing that the label fits.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics object that comparable training and skill are found in ballet, circus acrobatics and stunt work, none of which are sports. [Rejecting P2] They argue that risk is a reason for regulation rather than a criterion of sport. [Rejecting P3] They reply that showing a doubt may be prejudiced does not show that the classification is wrong. [Rejecting C] They conclude that the argument establishes that cheerleaders are athletes without establishing that cheerleading is a sport.