WI: Cheerleading remains a primarily male sport

[NibiruMul]

Although cheerleading is now considered a female sport, this wasn't always the case. In the first half of the 20th century, it was a primarily male sport. Female cheerleaders existed, but cheerleading was generally male-led. Early pop culture depictions of cheerleaders mostly portrayed them as male (like in the 1950 movie Cheaper by the Dozen, where one of the older girls had a cheerleader boyfriend). By the mid 20th century, the demographics of cheerleading shifted from male to female (helped by WWII, where female cheerleaders filled the roles of potential male cheerleaders being drafted). In time, male cheerleaders became somewhat stigmatized, and pop culture relegated them to jokes (and more often than not portrayed them as gay). Incidentally, female cheerleaders developed an array of stereotypes of their own, such as teen movies depicting cheerleaders as mean popular girls.

Now here's a question: what if cheerleading had remained a primarily male sport? What do you think sports events (both interscholastic and professional) would look like in an alternate timeline where cheerleading remained a primary male sport?

 

[DougM]

A lot of high school and college aged males will have a much more boring fantasy life?

But frankly not a lot will change except the stereotype of the cute/pretty/popular girl in HS being a cheerleader will go away and some new sort of stereotyp will have to take its place. We will see this mostly in TV and movies were the stereotype is often used as a shorthand.
The old movie Grease is a great example of this using the Stereotype of the Cheerleader to offset the Greaser and then swapping the Cheerleader for a leather clad smoking chick and the Greaser Boy for the Clean cut Letterman (something else that has mostly gone away)

In many ways that entire movie was predicated on the various stereotypes as shortcuts to explain everyone. And in movies with only 90 to 120 or so minutes movies are often dependent on the shorthand of the stereotype.

 

[Ahab]

I guss that cheerleading would be more similar to soviet ballet (in the sense that you have male athletic dancers) , and would fill similar cultural niche.
So disgraced male cheerleaders forced to join top secret CIA missions?