Jeff Webb, the entrepreneur who founded and built the cheerleading powerhouse Varsity Spirit, has died at 76 following an accident. His death was confirmed by Varsity Spirit, the company he founded in 1974, originally as the Universal Cheerleading Association.
According to cheerleading website Cheer Daily, Varsity Spirit president Bill Seely, Webb’s protégé, told the company’s employees in an email Thursday that Webb had been removed from life support two weeks after suffering a head injury during a game of pickleball.
A spokesperson for Varsity did not respond to a request for comment. The company publicly announced his passing on its social media channels Thursday, but did not specify Webb’s cause of death. A spokesperson for Webb also did not respond to a request for comment. The International Cheer Union, which Webb founded and served as president, wrote on Instagram that Webb had passed “following complications after an accident.”
News of Webb’s passing sent shockwaves through the cheer world he had long presided over.
A former collegiate sideline cheerleader at the University of Oklahoma, Webb grew Varsity from a modest cheer training business to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise through aggressive expansion and acquisitions, drawing both acclaim and condemnation. While celebrated for creating opportunities for millions of athletes, the Memphis-based company also faced criticism over its alleged monopolistic practices and concerns that it prioritized profits over the safety and well-being of its young competitors.
In 2011, Webb sold the business to Herff Jones—the school awards and regalia supplier—and became CEO and president of the combined entity, which later rebranded as Varsity Brands. The enterprise continued to expand, acquiring sports apparel company BSN Sports in 2013. In 2014, Varsity was acquired by Charlesbank Capital Partners for $1.5 billion. Webb reportedly pocketed $34.8 million from the sale and remained in a newly created role as chairman of Varsity Spirit, the company’s cheerleading division.
Charlesbank would be the first of three private equity firms to take ownership of Varsity over the next decade. Bain Capital purchased it in June 2018 for $2.5 billion, then sold it to KKR in 2024 for $4.75 billion, including debt. In all, Webb made nine figures from the transactions, though he later conceded the downside of going into business with institutional capital.
“Once you are on that treadmill,” Webb told The New York Times Magazine in 2024, “it’s almost impossible to go back.”
He officially cut all ties with Varsity in December 2020, as both he and the company faced mounting legal scrutiny over alleged antitrust violations and a wave of sexual abuse cases within cheerleading.
“I’m leaving Varsity Spirit, but I’m not leaving cheerleading,” he announced on Twitter.
Webb continued to pursue his long-time goal of putting the sport in the Olympics, a mission he carried forth through the International Cheer Union (ICU). That effort reached a milestone in July 2021, when the International Olympic Committee granted cheerleading provisional recognition. Two years later, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee followed suit, recognizing the Varsity-backed USA Cheer as an affiliate organization.
“Webb spent his life transforming what was just a sideline school activity into one of the fastest growing sports in the world with his passion, leadership and endless determination,” the ICU said in a statement.
Webb also entered the political arena, becoming co-publisher and chairman of the conservative media outlet Human Events and authoring American Restoration: How to Unshackle the Great Middle Class, a book seen as a potential springboard for a run at office. In an interview with Sportico in 2021, Webb expressed an interest in one day running for a U.S. Senate seat in his home state of Tennessee, or pursuing its governorship.
Among the issues Webb highlighted was the problematic influence of corporate monopolies, despite being accused of having built Varsity into one. At the time, Webb was named as a co-defendant in a class action antitrust case, Jones v. Bain, filed by indirect cheerleading purchasers alleging that Varsity had violated federal antitrust law through various illicit acts of suppressing competition and inflating prices.
“Many of the critics are people who are competitors of Varsity, and they are probably jealous,” Webb told Sportico. “Has Varsity made mistakes? Of course. This was a company that started from zero. It started from my apartment with me and one other person. It grew to be a large organization.”
Varsity and Bain ultimately agreed to settle the Jones case for $82.5 million in 2024, after settling a separate lawsuit for $43.5 million. Contemporaneously, the company faced—and eventually settled—dozens of separate lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of cheerleaders, a number of them minors, by coaches affiliated with Varsity-sponsored gyms or events. Together, the litigation cast a long shadow over the company but did not derail its latest acquisition.
Webb continued to defend his record, including in a two-hour interview in 2024 with The New York Times Magazine for a story examining Varsity’s controversies. During the conversation, when asked when he wants his epitaph to say, Webb reportedly struggled to come up with a response.
Yet questions of his legacy appear to have been very much on Webb’s mind of late.
In March 2025, production company September Club announced that it had begun work on a feature documentary about Webb, apparently with his full cooperation.
“Jeff Webb’s story is one of not only groundbreaking entrepreneurship and vision, but incredible grit and leadership over four decades of trials and tribulations,” Jeremy Coon, the show’s executive producer, said in a press release.
The documentary was reportedly set to be aired this year, but its current status is unclear. A representative of the production company did not respond to an email.
Webb was twice divorced and had two children with his second wife. According to public records, he was most recently living in a condominium next to the Memphis Country Club.
(This story has been updated in the second paragraph to clarify the outlet first with the news about the cause of Jeff Webb’s death.)
