17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders get a long-wanted pay bump
In a shocking victory, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders will receive a roughly 400 percent compensation increase for the 2025 season, in response to years of the cheerleaders fighting for higher pay and recent heightened scrutiny NFL teams have faced for low pay.
News of the raise was announced on the second season of the Netflix docuseries 'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,' which premiered Wednesday.
Although the details of pay rates weren't discussed on the show, the season showed how squad veterans Megan McElaney, Armani Latimer and Jada McLean were among the team members helping to push for increased wages.
McLean, who was a fifth-year Cowboys cheerleader during the 2024 season, told the New York Times that she was making $15 an hour and $500 for each appearance, meaning veterans could be currently making more than $75 an hour.
For years, the treatment of cheerleaders on NFL squads has come under scrutiny, with documentaries and media reports highlighting complaints of wage theft and sexual harassment across several teams. Former Washington cheerleaders told The Washington Post in a 2020 article that as they learned of unofficial lewd videos taken of the team's cheerleaders, they felt exploited by an organization that paid them about $1,000 a year.
When Charlotte Jones, the Cowboys' executive vice president and chief brand officer, was asked about the issue of cheerleader pay during the first season of 'America's Sweethearts,' she emphasized the women's 'passion for dance.'
'There's a lot of cynicism around pay for NFL cheerleaders, as there should be. They're not paid a lot. But the facts are that they actually don't come here for the money. They come here for something that's actually bigger than that to them,' Jones said.
Erica Wilkins, who was a Dallas cheerleader from 2014 to 2017, sued the team in 2018, alleging that she was paid less than the Cowboys' mascot, Rowdy. She accused the organization of not paying her overtime when she regularly worked more than 40 hours in a week and paying her less than the $7.25 minimum wage based on the number of hours she worked. Wilkins later dropped the lawsuit and reportedly reached a settlement.
In 2022, the Cowboys reportedly paid a settlement of $2.4 million after four cheerleaders accused the Cowboys' longtime senior vice president for public relations of voyeurism in 2015, according to ESPN. One of the women said the executive, after using a key card to enter their locker room, was standing behind a partial wall with his iPhone extended toward the cheerleaders while they were changing, the report said.
Before 'America's Sweethearts,' the competitive audition process was chronicled in 16 seasons of 'Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team,' which aired from 2006 to 2021.
