Cheerleaders are kind of a funny thing, huh? They seem the last remnants of a bygone era where only men cared about sports, and nothing is better for men than drinking beer, seeing beautiful ladies jiggle, and watching other grown men in spandex bump into each other. (Wait. What is a "smokescreen" in football, really? Ah! Moving on!)
That's all fine and dandy, except that they're still a thing. Yes, every franchise has their own cheerleaders. And they still parade them out. CBS, NBC, and Fox still make it a point to include shots of them in their broadcasts. The NFL and those individual organizations - with their billionaire owners - make so much bank that it stands to reason that those cheerleaders are getting their fair share of the pie, right?
Well, turns out, not so much. Like, at all.
Turns out, the average hourly wage of an NFL cheerleader is $9 to $15 an hour. Basically, they're making minimum wage, or the same wage as anyone else in an entry-level position. Evidently, Raiders cheerleaders were making $5 an hour in 2014, well below minimum wage. The hourly wage covers the hours spent training, and there's also a "match fee" for game days.
Typically, there are two tiers of cheerleaders, "elite" and "armature." Elite are the ladies you see at the stadium and on television. They make between $100 and $200 in such fees, while armature make about $60 to $70. The breakdown of the season's income though is a little depressing considering the NFL made about $10 billion in revenue. Elite cheerleaders earn about $3,500 for their services while armature cheerleaders make about $2,000.
A lot of people might be willing to shrug it off, saying that $3,500 over the course of eight games isn't too shabby. In essence, they're making almost $500 per game! Sounds pretty good, right? A few thousand dollars for eight shifts sounds all right.
NFL officials - generally the low men (and now women!) on the totem pole - make considerably more money. On the surface, it's easy to pass it off as simple volume. Cheerleaders only work home games, of which there are only eight. Officials, on the other hand, will work an entire season's worth of games, of which there are nearly double the number. So of course officials will make more money.
Except that the breakdown is still highly uneven. NFL officials make between $25,000 to $70,000 per season. (This is much higher in MLB, NHL, and NBA, where there are substantially more games. In this case, the "more money because more shifts" does make some sense.) If you break that down per game, officials on the lower end of that salary spectrum will earn about $1,500 per game - nearly $1,000 more than the cheerleaders. And if those long-time officials who earn on the higher end get broken down, it's about $4,300 per game.
One of the main arguments, of course, will be that the officials are more important to the game. Cheerleaders are just there to look pretty while officials are there to oversee the game. This argument is a fair one to an extent, but it downplays the skill level required for cheerleaders. It talks about them like it's an entry level position, or that it's unskilled labor.
NFL cheerleaders are considered a part-time gig, and many organizations even require these women have other jobs. They're expected to attend two four-hour rehearsals each week, while game days turn into eight-hour shifts. Never mind the demanding nature of the position, wherein the women must be diligent about maintaining their weight and tone, lest they get benched and lose a paycheck. It's also a hyper competitive market. The official requirements might not be that complicated - high school diploma or GED, having a full time job elsewhere, and some squads have a height/weight ratio requirement - it's still something of a skilled position. Applicants with prior dance or cheerleading experience have a better shot than those that don't, although if you're attractive enough, you have a shot. Not to demean the patience of other stadium employees like beer hawkers, vendors, and ticket takers, but cheerleading, by comparison, is much more of a skilled position.
Let it just sink in, by the way, that NFL squads expect women to commit 16+ hours a week to cheerleading while requiring they also have full time jobs outside it. Probably worth noting that practices and rehearsals are unpaid. In essence, cheerleaders are expected to be working and active for 55-60 hours each week. Alternatively, you could skip the other job requirement if you're a full time college student. So yeah, it is something of a time commitment.
None of this is to speak of the appearances they will make at publicity and charity events, some of which are unpaid, but typically, these events net the women more money than the actual cheerleading at games does.
And this is sort of the problem: cheerleaders keep getting treated like part-time, unskilled employees. Yet these women could potentially spend full time hours involved in squad activities - from games to practices to public events. If the justification for paying these women such low wages is that they're part-time, then it gets really absurd when you hear that the minimum salary for NFL mascots is $23,000. The lowest paid mascots make about $3,000 for two games, putting them up there with NFL officials in terms of per game payment - well above cheerleaders.
The other part of the problem is that for a job treated like part-time and entry-level, the teams sure do have a lot of insane requirements. A heavily reported leak from a former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader made its rounds in the news outlets some time ago, and it's pretty messed up. Quite literally, the women are judged explicitly by physical appearances. Right from the rule book, each woman "is expected to maintain ideal body weight and physical look for the duration of your contract. Weigh-ins will be held at the discretion of the Ravens. a) Failure to comply with body weight and/or appearance guidelines could result in suspension from the team or gameday suspensions. b) 3 game misses due to physical appearance suspensions could result in dismissal from the team."
Several women have reported being benched and left out of big games because they gained a few pounds. Despite looking totally fine, and with one woman, still weighing less than she did the year before, they lost paychecks as a result.
I hate to bring up the hypocrisy, especially when it seems so obvious, but this is taken directly from the Ravens contract with cheerleaders:
"Cheerleaders shall not commit any act that will or may create notoriety, bring the Ravens or cheerleaders into public dispute, or reflect adversely on Ravens and/or Ravens' sponsors."
That applies to the cheerleaders. Listed examples include exotic dancing, posing in nude or semi-nude photos, participating in swim suit contests (which sounds absurd when the highest selling Sports Illustrated issue is its stupid swim suit edition), and publishing memoirs of their time as a cheerleader (probably because they know how horrible they are towards those women and want to keep it under wraps).
It seems a little strange that this applies to their cheerleaders - a group of women the organization regularly refers to as "invaluable" to their operations and as "ambassadors" - but not, you'll note, to any of their players. The Ravens are an organization in which two of the best selling jerseys in franchise history were Ray Lewis and Ray Rice. And another highly popular player is Terrell Suggs. So apparently, involvement in a murder and obstruction of justice, knocking out your fiancee and casually dragging her body around, and more beating of wives are not detrimental enough to the organization, but models posing in string bikinis on their free time (because they're told they're part-time employees and should seek alternative income elsewhere) is over the line.
(As an aside, the Buffalo Jills sent their cheerleaders to an event called "The Man Show," which had all the women walking around the casino in their bikinis. So apparently, the women aren't allowed to use their looks for personal gain, but the Bills organization sure doesn't mind profiting from it!)
These organizations are also extraordinarily controlling over the lives of these women. Teams give out guidelines that sound like an 19th century "Lady Etiquette" book. It ranges from how much bread to eat at a formal event to how to properly polish nails. It even covers how to "properly" clean their lady bits. In many cases, they're forbidden from posting selfies on Facebook, and often, they'll pull images from someone's Facebook (without their permission) and display it for all of the other women as examples of what not to do.
Oh yeah, and you know those calendars? Yeah, the cheerleaders themselves have to pay for them. Not just one, but ten a month. Yes, apparently, the cheerleaders are expected to spend their own money and are required to sell as many as they can on their own. You know, kind of like one of those elementary school candy fundraisers! If women weren't able to buy the required number of calendars, they would be benched.
Not enough nonsense? The cheerleaders are also expected to pay for their own uniforms, which are about $650. Even more, the women are required to subject themselves to a physical inspection in their final rehearsal before game day. Coaches and managers stand with clipboards, scribbling down all the physical flaws that must be addressed in order for these women to be allowed to work the game. One would imagine that at best, it's all slightly dehumanizing and demeaning. Quite literally, they're often required to subject themselves to a "jiggle test."
One woman from the Buffalo Jills reported that she was pulled aside and told her hair was not "game ready." She was told to see the squad's stylist to fix the color. Ok, reasonable enough (well, considering everything else, at least). Except that she was expected to pay for the coloring herself. For a $90 hair coloring, being part of the Jills netted her a measly $5 discount.
One of the ultimate problems, of course, is that in this multi-billion dollar industry, with organizations making hundreds of millions on their own and sharing billions in collective bargaining revenue, the cheerleaders don't have any representation. NFL players have been gaining more power in the business - and rightfully so - because they have the Player's Association. The NFLPA has been hugely critical in stopping owners from enacting abusive and exploitative policies. The NFL referees also have a union that participates in collective bargaining agreements. Officials and players, on the most part, get a fair share. (Perhaps an article for another day is how they might not actually be getting a reasonably "fair share" of the NFL pie, but they're in much better positions than other stadium and team employees.)
NFL cheerleaders don't. There's been talk of unionizing, but cheerleaders are less central to the overall product. We've already seen what damage replacement officials can do, and there's a reason they don't even bother trying to have a season if the players hold out. If the cheerleaders unionize, there's a good chance the NFL teams just replace them and try to sweep everything under the rug.
What's strange is that with five teams involved in lawsuits for unfair wages and demeaning workplaces, the NFL should try to get ahead of this. The NFL has something of an image problem. With all that's happened with the Ray Rice incident, and the Greg Hardy incident, and the Terrell Suggs incidents, and the Ray McDonald incidents - all domestic violence cases involving some pretty horrifying violence against women -news has also surfaced of their breast cancer awareness scam.
Each October, the NFL pushes pink to the fold in an effort to raise awareness for breast cancer. It's one of the ways they claim to support women, which makes sense to do that given women are an increasingly important part of their fan base. (All this, mind you, while the NFL has told Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams - who practically started the entire thing - that he can't wear pink on his uniform all season long in memory of his mother and four aunts who died of breast cancer.)
Breast Cancer Awareness is a popular cause, and it makes it appear as if the NFL cares about women. But Business Insider crunched some numbers and found that a little over 8% of profits from the month go cancer research. They tout the whole $4.5 million thing too, but that's not even half a percent of the annual NFL revenue. Even more though, their Crucial Catch program has met criticism for being overly simplistic. It doesn't help either that the whole "annual screenings save lives" thing isn't even factually true. So on top of giving a tiny percentage to cancer research - and if anything, actually profiting from the Pink Ribbon - they're also dolling out inaccurate health information. (Surprise, surprise.) It's even been argued that what the NFL is doing on this might actually be more harmful than beneficial.
Oh, and by the way, only a portion of that 8% donated goes to actual cancer research. The numbers boil down to about $3.50 for every $100 in pink merchandise revenue going to actual cancer research.
So now that we've gone down that rabbit hole, it's kind of hard to look at the NFL as something of a positive force in anyway. (Mix in Lance Armstrong-to-the-nth-degree behavior in covering up concussions, and you've got an organization that is incredibly, morally reprehensible.)
Look, I love football. I do. And I've spent a lot of time and money on the NFL. Part of me is cringing at the fact that I am currently missing Tom Brady's "Revenge Tour," as he has thrown 20 touchdowns to 0 interceptions.* I'm super bummed that I'm missing one of Brady's best seasons, at a time when the Patriots have actual characters like Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, who are hilarious and great and go against the normal idea that Bill Belichick is just this grumpy old man who chases players like Wes Welker out of the organization for being too personable in the media.
I would love nothing more than to be able to actively care about the NFL again, and to watch it, and to go to games. But it's impossible to do now. The NFL is the worst organization in America, clean and simple. Walmart doesn't even have half the dirt and stink on it that the NFL does, frankly.
In the grand scheme of things, paying the cheerleaders fairly and treating them like, I dunno, humans and employees rather than just a collection of jiggling body parts, is literally the smallest thing a $10 billion business can do. No one is saying they should make what the players make. Few are even arguing they should make what officials make. Everyone understands their roles in the overall game.
But if the NFL and its thirty-two organizations have no problem using their images to promote their club and objectifying them at fundraisers and in calendars, the very least they can do is pay them reasonable and actually treat them like employees. Teams like to talk about cheerleaders as being ambassadors for their clubs. They are, in fact, one of the many faces. They're held to a higher standard than the players and owners, but they aren't even paid as well as the mascot.
Well, Kevin Durant knows:
*Yes, yes, I know Brady has actually thrown one interception. I don't know why other people don't use this metric, but I've long separated interceptions from drops. My personal format works a bit like hits versus errors in baseball. If it doesn't count as a hit because an infielder made an error, then a quarterback shouldn't be credited with an interception if it came off of a dropped pass. Brady's one interception was the result of Edelman's drop (which he actually dropped twice, since it hit him in the hands, popped out, and then he hit it again to pop it up again).
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