Skirting the issue: it’s time to start paying the cheer team
Catching a ball can make you a millionaire — why doesn’t cheering deserve a living wage?
Football players and football cheerleaders have a lot in common. Both groups are made up of incredible athletes who perform astonishing acts of strength and mastery to adoring fans. Both groups say they have dreamed of doing this work as long as they can remember and have been going to early-morning and after-school rehearsals since they were kids. Both groups have been engrossed in gruelling team practices leading up to the start of football season.
But only the players are paid for their time. Cheerleaders, despite the hundreds of hours they spend working to bring value to the team and the brand, are still largely volunteers. There is no reason for this, of course, other than this is how it has always been. But that doesn’t mean it should stay that way. Cheerleading is a highly skilled, dangerous activity, and the women who do this work should be well-paid for it.
The wage discrepancy, particularly in the U.S., would be comical if it wasn’t so horrifying. The average NFL player has an annual salary of $2 million, while many cheerleaders are paid less than a $1,000 a year.
A long-simmering issue, this disparity has received attention over the past month as cheerleaders’ legal battles have grown in number and success. California just passed a minimum wage requirement for cheerleaders that will come into effect on Jan. 1, and New York state is considering similar legislation. Even with these advances NFL cheerleaders will still earn nowhere near a living wage. After winning a wage-theft lawsuit, for example, the Oakland Raiderettes have seen their wages increase from $125 a game to $9 an hour; this brings their salary up to $3,250 a year.
Mascots, by the way, earn up to $65,000 per season, and concession workers are paid between $12 and $18 an hour.
It’s hard not to wonder how much this pay gulf has to do with the gender divide between players and cheerleaders. The players demonstrate agility and endurance through excruciatingly masculine tasks like running, crashing into each other, and throwing a ball. Cheerleaders, on the other hand, show those same skills through the typically feminine artform of dance and gymnastics, all while giving 100-megawatt smiles. Beauty and enthusiasm are expected of women in the public eye, while it’s simultaneously used as evidence of our lack of gravitas and worth.
Cheerleaders take classes in gymnastics, dance and aerobics — they spend money on tights and shoes. Then there are the costs of gym memberships, haircuts, makeup and tanning, which are required. Maintaining specific beauty standards are the norm. Weigh-ins are routine, as are hair and make-up checks.
Cheerleaders are paying out of pocket to do work that strengthens the NFL brand, which benefits players and team owners alike.
The wage disparity isn’ t as strong in the CFL, only because Canadian players tend to make comparatively modest wages to their NFL equivalents. Still, CFL players have a starting salary of $50,000 and the potential to earn hundreds of thousand of dollars a year. Even with their demanding schedule of rehearsals and performances, CFL cheerleaders are largely volunteers.
Many people feel that cheerleader work is largely unskilled, just smiling and jumping around, and shaking pom poms. I invite anyone who feels this way to look up some routines online, and see how much luck they have mastering them. Alongside complex choreography and gymnastics, many teams also have routines that involve physically rigorous and potentially dangerous activities, such as lifting, tossing, and (arguably most important) catching each other.
A study from the University of Montreal this summer suggests that hospital-treated injury rates for cheerleaders in Canada have tripled in the last 20 years. While that research focused on university and high-school teams, it is reflective of the increasing dangers of the sport overall. And unlike players, cheerleaders don’t have a players’ association to advocate on their behalf, and can’t make a WSIB claim if they are hurt on the job. As a matter of fact, a cheerleading injury likely means unpaid time away from a cheerleader’s day job.
You know, the one that she needs to make a living.
Why does anyone become a cheerleader, then? The reasons are largely the same as with any sport. Cheerleaders, like football players, are good at what they do and enjoy doing it in front of a stadium of cheering fans. They like being part of a team. They enjoy travelling around the country. They like the social status of being part of a nationally recognized franchise. Those things are profitable for players, but not for cheerleaders.
The pop culture portrayal of the cheerleader is at best eyecandy, and at worst airhead. In reality these women are incredibly talented and driven athletes. A quick glance through the cheerleader bios on the teams’ websites will introduce you to women who are studying to be lawyers, social workers, behavioural therapists and dance teachers.
They love their moms, they love their kids, and they seem universally to love animals. They want to make the fans happy, and be part of a team.
There is no reason being part of that team shouldn’t come with a living wage, other than someone at some point just decided not to bother paying them. Cheerleaders are not part of some hardscrabble community theatre troupe or members of a fledgling dance company hoping to one day get funding. They are part of the brand, and their work is making money for everyone from team owners to sportscasters. It is only fair that they start to see some of that profit.
Cheerleaders don’t have an association to advocate on their behalf, and can’t make a WSIB claim if they’re hurt