Cheerleading

1/31/2023 |  Varsity Settles Single Cheerleading Gym Suit in Antitrust Triad (Sportico) Varsity Brands, the Bain Capital-owned cheerleading company, has agreed to settle one of the three federal antitrust lawsuits that have been filed against it.

1/3/2023 |  Varsity-Backed USA Cheer Downplays Ties to Company and USASF (Sportico)

•   The cheerleading establishment and its corporate captain have arrived at their most precarious, yet ambitious, juncture.

On the one hand, the competitive cheer business is besieged by snowballing legal claims, industry insurgencies and heightened media scrutiny, all of which are challenging Varsity Brands’ power over the market.

11/2/2022 |  Varsity Threatens Defamation Suit Over Cheer Sex-Abuse Claims (Sportico)   In light of multiple lawsuits blaming Varsity Brands for a sex-abuse scandal within competitive cheerleading, the Bain Capital-owned company has now retained prominent defamation attorney Tom Clare.
On Tuesday, Clare sent a letter to Bakari Sellers, the attorney and Democratic CNN commentator whose law firm, Strom Law, is representing dozens of alleged sexual-abuse victims, accusing Sellers of perpetrating a “false narrative” in lawsuits which he has filed naming Varsity as a defendant.

9/7/2022 |  Varsity Cheerleading Faces Sex Abuse Claims Amid Antitrust Litigation (Sportico) Varsity Spirit, already besieged by a trio of antitrust lawsuits accusing it of operating as an illegal monopoly, is now being made to defend itself against litigation stemming from a child sex abuse scandal in competitive cheerleading.

5/24/2022 |  Varsity’s Antitrust Plaintiffs Ramp Up Battles on Cheerleading Stage (Sportico) The billion-dollar all-star cheerleading industry, long dominated by Varsity Brands, is beginning to see glimmers of a more open market. The cracks of daylight follow a pair of foundational blows: antitrust litigation against the Bain Capital-owned company that’s lumbering through the courts and the disruptions of COVID-19.