The topic of sports injuries has been escalating over the last number of years, specifically due to the long term major head injury problems that football players experience. It is odd that a focus was never placed on sports injuries in the past, when we had lower technology sports protection gear. Cheerleading doesn’t have protective sports equipment, so when there is an injury, it can be pretty severe.
1982-1983 introduced a study by the NCCSIR (The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research), covering both collegiate and high school sports injuries. Strangely, cheerleading was not included in that study, until there were two severe head injuries suffered by cheerleaders that just so happened in the same year as the study.
Continue reading “When Sports Cheerleading Goes Wrong”
Any fan will tell you that there are many nuances involved in a college basketball game. Beyond the game itself, are the players (and the favorites), the build-up on the electronic scoreboard, and of course the continued excitement generated by the cheerleaders and dancers. The latter can take a game that could be ho-hum, and pull it up to a reveled area of frenzy. While fans are focused on the people, there is a subliminal view of the uniforms and outfits. These can make or break a cheerleading team, and therefore there is a lot of competition when it comes to design, look and color. Some of the college basketball cheerleading uniforms are winners and some are rather questionable.
Sports footwear is big business, and pretty much dominated by the two behemoths, Adidas and Nike. The two giants are in the midst of a battle to have their names and logos on everything that relates to the World Cup. The winner will appear on uniforms/kits, all the way to electronic scoreboard ads. The quest to be the top brand is an ongoing marketing war between the historic name of Adidas and the newcomer, Nike.
While some of us may remember the days when a large scoreboard actually created the structural look of a stadium (as in the case of the Angels Stadium in California), the evolution of electronic scoreboards has made drastic changes in the last fifteen years. 
You don’t have to go to Vegas to see everything in lights anymore. The truth is, the lowly electronic scoreboard has surpassed even the manufacturer’s anticipated results. We are delightfully bombarded with the latest technology in scoreboards at every turn, and the promise of the future looks like this trend will continue.
Each new school year the Director of the Sports Department has a meeting to review the needs of the various teams. Everything is examined: from uniforms to the condition of the field or stadium. As each sports team regroups for the season, they will also add their input for what they feel is needed for the success of the year. On the top of the list is the electronic scoreboard.
There is an entire generation that has grown up not knowing what life was like without the internet, phone apps and high tech electronics. As a society, we have sped with lightning evolution into an age where everything can be viewed, communicated and shared, in an instant. In the U.S., the supply and demand channel for high tech has been backed by the hungry fans of our sports teams. We have progressed from a nation attending a hometown game with the old fashioned manual scoreboard to an expectation level of streaming, moment-by-moment updates on electronic scoreboards.
Electronic Scoreboards are seen in every new stadium that has been built. The Dallas Cowboys’ new $1.4 billion stadium looks to have the largest scoreboard ever created, with it being completely digital and capable of showing high quality video to virtually every guest in attendance. Sports scoreboards for a long time have been regarded as an advertising tool for many businesses, with signs and banners plastered all over the older models that were well before the time of affordable digital design. Then came LED message boards which opened up a broad spectrum of possibilities for companies that sought advertisement space or those who wanted to be more creative in their methods of putting thoughts of product into the minds of those within reach. Its a game of exposure, and exposure is the prime focus of all advertising.
