Cheerleading Is Bigger Than You Think, and There's a Career in It for You

Most people who grew up in cheer never thought of it as a career path. It was the thing they did before real life started. Dominique Longpré, founder of Cheer Action, thought differently, and her story is proof that the sport is big enough to build a life around.

TL;DR — Cheerleading is a billion-dollar global industry with over 7.5 million participants across 116 countries, and it's growing fast. There are more career paths inside this sport than most athletes ever realize. Dominique Longpré of Cheer Action sat down with Rachelle Provost on the After The Routine podcast to talk about her journey from athlete to coach to international event representative to founder. If you've ever wondered whether you could make a career out of cheer, this one's for you.

The Sport Is Bigger Than Most People Realize

Cheerleading in Canada is governed by Cheer Canada, our national sport organization, and the numbers tell a story of a sport in full momentum. Across Canadian cheer gyms and scholastic programs, the sport now counts over 30,000 registered athletes from coast to coast, participating in youth, collegiate, and All Star cheerleading clubs at every level. At the national level alone, some of the biggest competitions host 8,000 athletes, with at least double that number of supporters in attendance.

Zoom out globally and the scale becomes hard to ignore.

Over 7.5 million people participate in cheerleading across 116 member nations of the International Cheer Union.

The industry that supports them (cheer uniforms, cheer shoes and gear, competitions & events, training programs & conferences, choreographers, judges & experts) is substantial. The global cheerleading equipment market was valued at approximately $1 billion USD in 2024 and is projected to reach $1.7 billion by 2033, growing at a compound annual rate of 7.5%.

Demand for cheer uniforms in Canada specifically has tracked this growth, as more gyms and scholastic programs invest in custom performance wear each season.

This is a recognized, fast-growing international sport with an industry built around it, and that industry needs people.

One Person. Multiple Angles of the Sport.

Cheer Action's Founder Dominique Longpré has lived cheerleading from the inside out. She started as an athlete, became a coach and trainer, spent nearly a decade as an international representative for a cheer competition company, and built a parallel career as a Registered Dietitian along the way. She eventually stepped back from her career in health services to put more off her energy into cheer. Today she runs Cheer Action, a Canadian cheerleading uniform and gear company.

Every role she held gave her a layer of understanding that the next one built on. On the floor, behind the scenes, at the industry table, she accumulated a perspective on this sport that very few people have.

She sat down with Rachelle Provost on After The Routine to talk through how it all unfolded, what she learned, and what she wishes someone had told her earlier. Listen to the whole conversation as well as other guests'such as Judge Mimi, Jeff Benson from Mind Body Cheer, Sam & Rolton from Sharp Performance, Corey Rickett from FAB, Nadia Belzy and may more.

What Wearing the Uniform Taught Her

One thread that runs through the whole conversation is what the uniform meant. For Dominique, putting it on was never just about looking the part. It was a signal to herself: time to become the most focused, most confident, most present version of the athlete she was working to be. The mindset shift was real. Lead your stunt group, hold the standard, bring the team with you.

We're sure many of you relate to that.

That feeling never left, and it now lives at the center of how she thinks about the product she builds.

Hear her talk about it in her own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY7PDjjFLo8

The Careers Most Cheer Athletes Never Know Exist

This is the gap After The Routine was built to close. The sport has a wide professional ecosystem: coaching, choreography, event production, certified judging, sport administration, federation roles, entrepreneurship, nutrition, sports psychology, media and content creation. Most of the people best suited to those careers don't know they exist because nobody in the industry makes them visible.

If you've spent years in a gym and assumed the only options were to keep coaching or move on, this episode will reframe that entirely.

Listen to the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY7PDjjFLo8

You Can Do This

The sport is growing. The industry is growing. Canada's cheerleading community is growing, and it needs people who grew up inside it. People who understand it from the floor, who know what it takes, who care about where it goes.

The skills cheer builds (leadership under pressure, group communication, goal-setting, discipline, performing when it counts) don't disappear when the season ends. They travel with you into every room you walk into, every team you lead, every decision you make.

Trust yourself. Go for it. You can build a career doing something you love and something you're genuinely good at. Plenty of people already have, and more are figuring it out every season.

The After The Routine podcast, hosted by Rachelle Provost, is dedicated to making those career paths visible. Each episode features a professional who turned their time in cheer, dance, or gymnastics into a meaningful career on and off the floor. It is exactly the kind of resource that didn't exist a generation ago.

Find After The Routine on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/after-the-routine-podcast/id1882061903

Cheer Action exists because 2 people who lived this sport from multiple angles decided to dive in even deeper. We supply cheer uniforms, cheer shoes, and gear to Canadian cheer gyms and cheerleading clubs from coast to coast. When your team is ready to take the floor, we're ready to help them look the part. Browse our 2026-27 catalog at cheeraction.ca for custom cheer uniforms in Canada built for competitive performance.