Cheerleading is not officially recognized as a sport — neither by the NCAA nor by U.S. federal Title IX guidelines. The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (NCCSIR) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reports that for both high school and college athletes, the number of female cheerleaders’ direct catastrophic injuries was second only to football players, based on data taken annually from 1982 to 2018.

Source: Time