Wouldn’t be surprised if these stories are the first of many…
First, yesterday, Marie Claire ran a story about the shitty way cheerleaders are treated.
And if you were thinking “Man, that’s dreadful. There’s no way we could get a worse story today about cheerleaders being demeaned,” hahaha. This is the NFL. Daniel Snyder is an owner. Behold.
Graf:
I mean…holy shit.
The Redskins essentially whored out their cheerleaders in almost every way.
Daniel Snyder needs to be forced into selling the team. Pure and simple.
Well that’s some wholesome sporting images there. I am shocked, shocked I tell you that women paraded in front of a sports team like eye candy were handed out like actual candy by men when given the chance.
Next up, a bunch of people saying they signed up for this.
Well this does answer one question, I’ve had what do you get for spending ridiculous amounts of money beyond Owners clubs suite, for the top booster club members. NFL cheerleaders as escorts.
Like Nesrie, I’m shocked. Although I’d be surprised post MeToo to see this in the future.
I want my faith in humanity to be better, but I suspect the group protesting the NFL because some of them kneeled will mostly not care that the cheerleaders were forced on “dates” complete with tears absolutely showing their desire not to do it.
Keep in mind that cheerleaders make terrible money. It’s not even a full-time gig. I think I read they make like $200 for a game.
Yeah
Diane Todd, who works in the health care industry and whose daughter is a high school cheerleader in Southern California, said in 2013 she searched online to see how much cheerleaders make. She discovered that some NFL cheerleaders make less than $1,000 per year while mascots make as much as $65,000 per year.
The levels of awful that come off that story are just sickening. Every time I get grossed out about the whole allowing male luxury suite owners up close access to cheerleaders who were required to be topless, I then remember the part about the forced escort dates. And then I remember the part about “confiscated their passports.”
I think if you google NFL Cheerleaders and the stories around them you will find many lawsuits and complaints about their pay and their treatment.
But this is a group made up of two types I think, one that truly loves cheerleading and the game and would do it for free (and many do…see lawsuits) and another group that does this as a stepping stone to somehow become famous some other way. And no, I don’t think any of them asked for what the Redskins Cheerleaders in that story had to put up with. That was criminal.
EDIT: In California there is a group trying to make cheerleading a sport in the schools, thus opening them up to all the benefits other athletes get. If you ever knew someone who had a kid do cheerleading you would know how expensive it is and how many injuries they suffer.
Yeah, there’s both a supply and demand problem here like drugs and prostitution.
There are plenty of women who will do the job for free, either for the love of cheering or the game, or to use it as a stepping stone to…something. I guess maybe they sometimes get “discovered”?
And there’s the problem of team owners and employees taking advantage of this situation by paying them basically nothing, not offering benefits, and apparently enabling skeezy gross shit by high-paying sponsors.
I doubt you ever solve the supply problem, so it seems like you gotta handle it on the team side.
I knew a couple girls who used to be Patriots cheerleaders, this was like 12 years ago. It’s basically an internship, and the team does make that clear. They were hoping to use it as a springboard to a modeling career but it didn’t pan out (cuz they were working now as support analysts at a tech company). After 2 years they “aged out” and weren’t invited back.
To hear it from them it was a lot of work for almost no money, they had to pay all their own expenses, mandatory attendance at “charity” events (unpaid), and 10 game checks a year (preseason included). They were weighed and measured weekly to make sure they were still hot enough, I guess? Players and team staff were forbidden from interacting with them so no shenanigans there, at least that’s how it went on the Patriots. Sounds like Snyder has a different way of operating…
Not just the expensive but it is athletic depending on the level.of competition. It’s a lot of work. In High School I thought they were pretty well supported compared to every sport except football though.
In my school district the parents of cheerleaders paid for, and helped raise money for, pretty much everything the cheerleaders did. Plus I don’t think injuries were handled like, say, a football or basketball players injuries. Hell, at one time having a 2 kids in the band cost me over $1,800 a year, and that was nothing compared to what it cost for a cheerleader.
Now some of that has changed. I actually think state law outlaws some of that, so instead fund raising is even bigger now.
Yeah, I actually know a former Redskins cheerleader (she was on the squad in the late 1990s) and her horror stories were about the lack of pay, benefits, and everything else.
But this is something else, and this story isn’t going to go away. Feels like the tip of the iceberg.
I don’t remember any names but I have heard many stories of colleges and college coaches who have used cheerleaders as escorts during recruiting visits. Now that doesn’t mean sex was involved, but I also remember hearing players claim it did in some cases.
I won’t dispute the weirdness at its core notion of cheerleaders at NFL games, but beyond that, no. You’ve lost me.
“They’re sex objects” is the same thing you could say about, say, fashion models. But if Versace or Gucci were requiring models to pose nude while men could secretly ogle them and requiring them to serve as “personal escorts”, there would be issues there, too.
There are plenty of models, cheerleaders, dancers, etc. who have a line and do not grant consent beyond it, and are happy to work within their own comfort level but no further.
Anything other justifications are Handmaiden’s Tale level bullshit.
It is kind of a misogynist, capitalist step when you look at what happens from the pep squads in junior high and high school to the cheerleaders at a major university to what teams like the cowboys do.
And again, there is no excuse for what the Redskins did in that story. Is that something that is trending in the news now?
Well, I’m an NFL fan, and I know there are former cheerleaders that have used that to springboard into other careers (our real estate agent was a cheerleader for the Seahawks), but this is just plain gross. There’s no place for this. If that story is true, the team should be HEAVILY sanctioned by the league.
