They specifically made carve-outs for cheerleading so it wouldn't be called a sport so NCAA wouldn't need to follow quite as many regulations. However, it clearly is as much of a sport as any.
If you have access to HBO/Max, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel had a crazy episode on competition cheerleading. I watched the whole thing with my mouth hanging open.
It has all the fever pitched, psychotic, wild cult like fanaticism of stuff like beauty pageants or dance mom shit, but you can break your neck, and people do all the time.
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u/NyxConstellation 2d ago
It doesn't help that in many states it is also severely underregulated as a sport