Pay the Cheerleaders
And give them a union while you're at it.
Dear readers,
Happy Superbowl Sunday! As longtime readers of the newsletter will know, we here at Southpaw are largely unmoved by football’s charms, so we really couldn’t care less who wins tonight’s game. (We are excited for RiRi, though). That said, the official Southpaw pick for the game is the Philadelphia Eagles, mostly because we have fond memories of them defeating the New England Patriots while we were in college in New England, thus dashing the hopes of many of the most annoying people on campus. (Also, they’re the only team playing in tonight’s game whose fans won’t be doing “the tomahawk chop”.)
For the past couple years, we’ve taken this opportunity to complain about the NFL. That’s gotten a little tired, so this year we’re going to complain more specifically about how NFL teams mistreat their cheerleaders. Enjoy!
-Ian and Calder
The numbers are staggering. In the last 10 years, 10 NFL teams have been hit with lawsuits from their cheerleaders or players alleging everything from discrimination to unsafe working conditions to harassment to wage theft.
Exhibit A: In 2014, 90 Oakland Raiders cheerleaders filed a class action lawsuit alleging that they had been paid as little as $1,250 a year — while also being subject to fines and disciplinary action for doing things like painting their nails the wrong color or bringing the wrong pom-poms to practice. The suit won the group $1.25 million in back pay, and their success inspired other cheerleading squads to bring class action lawsuits against their own teams, alleging similar acts of mistreatment and unlawful working conditions.
The even bigger problem, though, is how poorly NFL teams can treat their cheerleaders without running afoul of the law. NFL franchises are worth billions of dollars and generate millions a year in revenue, thanks to booming ticket sales and sweetheart television broadcasting deals. But these same teams are famously stingy when it comes to paying their off-the-field employees. The average NFL cheerleader makes roughly $22,500 per year — or about $15 to $20 an hour — and as contracted employees, most do not receive health or retirement benefits. (By comparison, the average NFL waterboy makes about $54,000 annually with benefits — almost double what most cheerleaders earn.) To make matters worse, most teams avoid paying cheerleaders for the totality of their labor by compensating them only for the time they spend performing and appearing in public, forcing them to learn and practice their routines on their own time.
And unlike players and stadium staff, NFL cheerleaders don’t have a union to serve as a counterbalance to the overwhelming financial power of the league. Instead, cheerleaders have to fall back on class action lawsuits and other legal mechanisms to seek damages for past mistreatment and fight for better working conditions. This is, of course, a very imperfect solution, especially since cheerleaders’ reliance on lawsuits opens them up to all sorts of potential retribution from their employers. In 2014, for instance, the Buffalo Bills permanently suspended their cheerleading squad (officially referred to as “the Buffalo Jills”) after four cheerleaders filed a lawsuit alleging wage discrimination and harassment. (Amazingly, this retaliatory measure did not violate federal labor law.) The plaintiffs ultimately won a multi-million dollar settlement — but they were still out of a job.
To add insult to injury, these lawsuits address only a small part of the economic exploitation that cheerleaders endure, while leaving the exploitative sexual politics of cheerleading largely untouched. In addition to paying better, teams should have robust rules in place to punish men who refuse to respect the line between worker and sexual object.
And at the moment, all the available evidence suggests that these protections — even where they do exist — are not nearly strong enough. Just last year, for example, the Dallas Cowboys settled a confidential $2.4 million lawsuit brought by five cheerleaders who accused a senior team executive of peeping on them while they changed in their locker room. The same male executive had also been accused of taking “upskirt” photos of another female executive, according to an ESPN report — and yet he was allowed to retire quietly rather than facing any sort of penalty.
The NFL’s mistreatment of its cheerleaders is a problem in and of itself, but it’s also symptomatic of a more widespread problem within the league. For decades, the league has marketed itself to fans as the embodiment of America’s meritocratic myth: those who work hard will rise up and succeed, regardless of who they are or where they come from. This mythology is the foundation of every element of the league’s self-conception, from the way it markets its players to the way it recruits its cheerleaders. See that little girl in the stands who loves the Cowboys more than anything? One day, she, too, could be the captain of the famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
The problem with this model is that myths — even the most glamorous ones — don’t pay your rent or cover your medical bills. At some point, fans have got to demand that the league and its teams offer their employees more than a dream. Pay up.
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about . . .
. . . another reason to hate the NFL? “How the NFL avoids paying disabled players — with the union’s help,” by Will Hobson in The Washington Post (February 8, 2023).
. . . the backlash against a creepy Florida medical form? “Florida drops menstruation reporting from student sports forms after backlash,” by Victoria Bisset in The Washinton Post (February 10, 2023).
. . . the good and the bad of sports betting on indigenous land? “How Sports Betting Upended the Economies of Native American Tribes,” by David Chen, Mark Walker, and Kenneth Vogel in The New York Times (February 10, 2023).
. . . the paradox at the heart of the NFL? “The Uncomfortable, Messy Truth of Watching This NFL Season,” by Nora Princiotti in The Ringer (February 6, 2023).