BACK TO PROJECTS
ATHLETIC EVENT
Pro Cheer League
5 Cities
01
The Challenge
When Varsity Spirit set out to launch the Pro Cheer League (PCL), they were introducing an entirely new professional sports property designed for national television audiences, live event attendees, and a growing fan base eager to experience cheerleading in a new way.
Unlike traditional cheer competitions, the PCL was designed as a professional sports league featuring team franchises, season standings, athlete storylines, national television distribution, and a championship event. The production environment needed to feel as polished and immersive as any major televised sporting event while remaining flexible enough to adapt between convention centers and arena venues throughout the five city tour.
The design team faced several critical objectives:
Create a distinctive visual identity for a brand new professional sports league.
Deliver a consistent broadcast environment for ION Television regardless of venue type.
Maintain clear sightlines and even lighting for athletes, judges, spectators, and television cameras.
Build a scalable touring system capable of deploying quickly with a lean traveling crew.
Provide system redundancy to ensure reliability during nationally televised broadcasts.
Create a live audience experience that matched the excitement and energy expected from a professional sports property.
Adding to the challenge was the aggressive timeline. With only weeks between final design approval and opening night, UpLight Technologies was tasked with transforming an ambitious concept into a repeatable touring production package capable of supporting five national events and a televised championship season.
02
The Vision
UpLight Technologies approached the project with a simple objective:
Create an immersive sports entertainment environment that elevated professional cheerleading beyond the traditional competition format while translating seamlessly to television.
Concept, Design, and Pre production
The design philosophy centered on creating a visually dynamic environment that would engage audiences in the arena while providing television viewers with a consistent, recognizable, and energetic visual identity for the new league.
Video as Architecture
At the center of the design was a custom LED architecture built from INFiLED Black Widow AMT 3.9mm LED panels.
Rather than relying on a traditional rectangular video wall, the design incorporated a large center display flanked by staggered LED wings and integrated floor pods that extended the visual environment across the entire competition floor.
The video system included:
96 m² of INFiLED Black Widow AMT 3.9mm LED panels
60-panel center display measuring approximately 12m wide x 5m tall
24 panels integrated into staggered wing structures
Custom floor mounted LED pods
Dual Brompton SX40 processors
Four Brompton XD distribution units
Analog Way Zenith 200 presentation switcher
Resolume media server with StageFlow integration
The resulting structure created a layered visual environment that framed athletes while providing opportunities for team branding, sponsor integrations, statistical graphics, broadcast content, and dramatic player introductions.
Lighting for Athletes, Audiences, and Cameras
Lighting presented one of the project's most complex design challenges. Unlike concerts or traditional sporting events, the system needed to simultaneously satisfy several competing requirements:
Even, consistent illumination across the entire competition floor for athletes and judges.
Broadcast quality exposure for television cameras.
Dynamic visual energy for live audiences.
Flexibility for multiple venue types and rigging conditions.
The lighting package utilized:
32 Robe BMFL fixtures
24 Claypaky Sharpys
48 ACME Pixel Line fixtures
16 Elation Pulse Panels
16 ACME Tornado beam fixtures
Avolites D7 control console
More than 32 universes of networked lighting control
One of the production's signature design features was the integration of ACME Tornado fixtures directly beneath the LED structures that allowed lighting and video to function as a single scenic element, creating depth, movement, and visual energy as an extension of the canvas.
Behind the visual spectacle was a carefully engineered touring infrastructure. A seven person traveling crew was responsible for deploying, operating, and striking the entire production package.
Through detailed planning, standardized workflows, and integrated system design, the team consistently achieved:
Efficient load ins and Load outs
Reliable deployment across convention centers and arenas
Broadcast ready operation at every stop
Full lighting and video redundancy
The touring package was engineered for both performance and repeatability, allowing the league to maintain a consistent visual identity regardless of venue limitations.
03
The Results
The inaugural season of the Pro Cheer League established a new production benchmark for professional cheerleading. Across five national tour stops, the production successfully transformed competition venues into broadcast ready sports environments that felt equally compelling in person and on television.
The video structure created a layered visual environment that framed athletes while providing opportunities for team branding, sponsor integrations, statistical graphics, broadcast content, and dramatic player introductions.
The lighting design resulted in a broadcast friendly environment that maintained consistent athlete visibility while delivering the excitement expected of a professional sports presentation.
The audio system delivered clean, intelligible audio throughout the venue, optimized for each zone, with consistent coverage from floor level to the highest arena seats.
UpLight’s cohesive, integrated design created a distinctive visual identity for the league while providing broadcasters with a polished environment that frequently served as the backdrop for interviews, graphics packages, athlete features, and live coverage.
Most importantly, the production helped support the successful launch of an entirely new professional sports property.
According to Varsity Spirit, the inaugural season welcomed more than 5 million unique viewers across all five matches and finished as one of the highest rated professional televised sporting events based on average viewership. The success of the league led directly to expansion plans for Season Two.
For UpLight Technologies, the project represented more than a successful tour, it demonstrated the company's ability to design, engineer, and realise a nationally televised touring production from concept through implementation while maintaining the flexibility, reliability, and creativity required by modern sports entertainment properties.
04
Purpose Built for Professional Sports
The Pro Cheer League required more than a competition setup. The production environment was designed to establish the visual identity of an entirely new professional sports league.
Broadcast and Live Audience Focused
Every design decision balanced the needs of television viewers, athletes, judges, sponsors, and live audiences.
Integrated Scenic Technology
Video, lighting, and audio were designed as a unified storytelling system, creating a cohesive environment rather than a collection of individual technologies.
Touring Without Compromise
The production maintained a consistent broadcast quality presentation across multiple venue types while deploying with a remarkably lean touring team.
A New Standard for Cheer Production
The inaugural PCL season demonstrated how immersive production design can elevate athletic competition into a true sports entertainment experience and establish a foundation for future growth.
05
Client Testimonial
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