Star spillovers in cheerleading: National team athletes at the intersection of elite and grassroots sports

This study examines whether participation in an elite national team programme generates performance spillovers to athletes' grassroots home teams. Specifically, it asks whether teams with at least one Team Germany athlete perform better and whether such effects increase with the number of elite athletes. Based on a novel longitudinal dataset from German competitive cheerleading, grassroot sport home team performance using competition scores and the probability of achieving first place are analysed. Additional specifications examine nonlinear effects and potential pre-treatment differences. Teams containing at least one Team Germany athlete achieve consistently higher competition scores, while the association with first-place finishes is positive but less robust. Additional elite athletes do not generate proportional performance gains; the nonlinear specification instead indicates diminishing marginal returns. The findings suggest that elite athletes can generate spillovers beyond their national team environment through human capital, peer effects, and performance standards. For sport management, maintaining connections between elite athletes and their home teams may therefore allow elite development investments to generate broader grassroots benefits.