High Kicks and Low Wages: The price of being a NFL Cheerleader.

[dismal]

As research for the thread I went to the Mavs Maniaacs website to see how much loot they are dangling to lure in recruits. I saw no evidence of money on offer. They seem to be able to get the 1 or 2 recruits a year they need in a metro area of 5 million people without dangling loot. It seems the main requirement is you sign a waiver and an independent contractor agreement. On the other hand they only practice for 2 hours at 7pm Tuesday nights so you could maybe hold another job.

So, based on that fact set can someone help me identify the tears in the fabric of social justice?

 

[Ford]

These women are professional entertainers and if they were working under SAG rules, they would be making a helluva lot more than they are now.

Yeah, but see...they're pretty women so they can just find themselves a nice husband so they won't have to have a job!


And cheerleading (as we've learned from our intrepid experts here) is an easy thing for a pretty girl to do...just shake your tits and ass in front of men! Anyone can do that, and some will do it voluntarily, so the clearly talentless (but pretty) hacks out there on the field every game shouldn't be paid for any of it, right?


As we've also learned, there are 1,000 women per every "paid" cheerleader who would gladly do it for free...which begs the question...why doesn't the league already have all their squads filled with volunteer cheer babes?

Ah ha! Perhaps we've discovered a plot...a feminist plot, probably...to soak the non-profit NFL and their struggling franchises for money to be handed out to unqualified (but pretty) women that could otherwise be saved by filling the ranks with happy volunteers! Not only are these chicks nothing more than eye-candy, they're actually dragging down the league with their demands for compensation! This clearly could have only happened if some radical leftist feminazis stepped in and forced the NFL teams to pay these bimbos!

Thanks, activists!

 

[Bronzeage]

These women are professional entertainers and if they were working under SAG rules, they would be making a helluva lot more than they are now.

All they need is for the Player's Union to refuse to cross a picket line and the Owners will come around.

Solidarity forever.

 

[Nexus]

So are you genuinely concerned that cheerleaders currently making sub-minimum wage will instead make no wage? Is that truly your concern?

I'm not concerned with the current wages because it is my belief that they are making more than minimum wage once you include the non-monetary value of the enjoyment of being a cheerleader on an NFL team.

Its ridiculous to assert enjoyable jobs should be exempt from minimum wage laws.

These women can easily obtain a job paying above minimum wage with their looks alone if they really need the money.

So you're saying if the person can get another job there is no need for minimum wage.

Why shouldn't the non-monetary benefits count for anything? Is the only thing that matters in life money?

No one said they don't count. Obviously "fun" jobs will have a greater supply of labor applicants that still doesn't justify exemption from minimum wage requirements.

I'm more concerned that lawsuits and cracking down will lead to more NFL teams eliminating cheerleading squads all together, like six have already done. That means these women get paid 0 and must go out and find that alternate job anyway and don't get the option of having the enjoyment of being an NFL cheerleader if that is what they enjoy.

I'm still not buying your think of the cheerleaders argument. The ones suing obviously aren't enjoying it enough at sub-minimum wages. If the NFL made it voluntary then the independently wealthy cheerleaders will continue to do what they love for free. And our labor laws will stop being undermined.

If there was demand for NFL cheerleaders and limited numbers of women who enjoyed it, then you'd see the pay naturally rise in order to attract sufficient numbers.

This is just your faith based appeal to the power of the free market. Business will pay what whatever their society will tolerate. No thanks to your vision of a free market. We had that in the 19th century with 60 hour work weeks no overtime no minimum wage and awful working conditions.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

A job by law must pay the required minimum wage.

But not a hobby should the NFL attempt to turn it into one.

That is not the case TODAY. That was not the case over the period addressed in the lawsuits.

If it were a hobby there would be no story, BUT THERE IS A STORY!!!!!

And playing it otherwise is simply wishes and horses and beggars who ride.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I attempt to extract the maximum value I can in a combination of both monetary and non monetary benefits from my job.

As do the cheerleaders and they agree with you that the non monetary rewards outweigh the monetary ones, they just want MINIMUM WAGES and a feeling that they are thought of as skilled workers valuable to their franchise. You act like they are calling for Bolshevik Revolution, when all they want is to be paid within the bounds of the law, to be valued as having the rights afforded a 16 year old working the counter at McDonalds.

Non monetary benefits include ideas to improve my job enjoyment and satisfaction with my boss, vacation time, start time flexibility, among other things.

As for getting rid of the cheerleaders, if the job is only paying you a ticket to go the game and for parking, what exactly have you lost? According to just the posters here, no one is watching the cheerleaders, they have no worth to the team, they add no value to finished product, should be all volunteers and be damn glad to do so.

Some watch the cheerleaders for a few minutes. They have some value to the spectators. There is no should about any of it. If they are willing to be volunteers and are glad to volunteer, that's their business.

But they aren't willing to be volunteers and using that as a threat to make them obedient and stop their bitchin' proves that everyone here knows that this ain't about volunteering but about payment for services rendered, which make these appeals to volunteering even more ludicrous.

 

[ksen]

You and Dismal can stop pretending you're concerned about the cheerleaders being worse off no one is buying that.

What I'm doing is applying logic and engaging foresight. As opposed to shrieking out the latest grievance before I've really thought about whether anyone was aggrieved at all.

I find logic and foresight to be useful -- maybe even here. It keeps you from arguing things like African slavery was voluntary in a thread about cheerleaders.

Logic suggests that if there are lawsuits then there are aggrieved parties.

 

[jonatha]

The simplest solution is to let the cheerleaders give lap dances in the stands.

Beats selling buying calendars.

[

FTFY :-D

 

[dismal]

Its ridiculous to assert enjoyable jobs should be exempt from minimum wage laws.

Is it ridiculous to assert activities aren't jobs at all if you don't pay people to do them?

Because that would be something closer to an argument actually being made.

 

[jonatha]

Is it ridiculous to assert activities aren't jobs at all if you don't pay people to do them?

Because that would be something closer to an argument actually being made.

It might not be ridiculous, but it would probably run afoul of labor laws.

Otherwise there wouldn't be many jobs at all, just "activities"....

 

[dismal]

Is it ridiculous to assert activities aren't jobs at all if you don't pay people to do them?

Because that would be something closer to an argument actually being made.

It might not be ridiculous, but it would probably run afoul of labor laws.

Otherwise there wouldn't be many jobs at all, just "activities"....

I'm going to assume that you don't actually think all of what we currently called jobs would continue to get done if the paycheck stopped. If you believe this let me disabuse you of this idea instantly by pointing out I will not be coming to work to tomorrow if I am told today my "job" is now an "unpaid activity". So, there is at least one.

That aside, please take the fact set I described earlier with the additional assumption these people are being paid $0 and describe what labor laws you believe it runs afoul of:

As research for the thread I went to the Mavs Maniaacs website to see how much loot they are dangling to lure in recruits. I saw no evidence of money on offer. They seem to be able to get the 1 or 2 recruits a year they need in a metro area of 5 million people without dangling loot. It seems the main requirement is you sign a waiver and an independent contractor agreement. On the other hand they only practice for 2 hours at 7pm Tuesday nights so you could maybe hold another job.

 

[ronburgundy]

If NFL cheerleading "has none of the athleticism, skill, and risky moves of school cheerleading" then how did this happen?

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...cheerleader-hurt-no-significant-injuries-fall

Being tossed in the air and hitting the ground is not particularly athletic or skillful. Anyone who isn't too heavy to be thrown can do it with zero training.
When you went hunting on the internet for evidence that NFL cheerleaders are elite and highly skilled athletes doing risky stunts, and you found a single case of 1 NFL cheerleader being injured because she was tossed in the air and hit the ground, it really didn't occur to you that this is not very compelling evidence?
I remember this story, because it was a lead story on almost every news broadcast nation wide, despite the fact that she didn't actually get injured and was released from the hospital after a brief examination. So, why was mere potential cheerleader injury that was far less serious than numerous player injuries that happen every week given so much national attention? It is precisely because even a potential injury of NFL cheerleaders is so uncommon, rare, and unexpected given what they typically do at game that this was big news. I searched "NFL cheerleader injured" and page after page of results showed nothing but this single story with no mention of any injury to any other cheerleader this or any past year.

Its no coincidence this 1 potential injury was on the Baltimore Ravens, because they are the only NFL team with male cheerleaders and the only one that does these kind of lifts and tosses that are standard in school cheerleading. The Ravens have a normal "dance" squad who just giggle and look pretty, plus a co-ed "stunt squad" which is what this woman was on. All other NFL teams only have the female-only look-pretty type squads. Look around at info sites for how to become an NFL cheerleader and they say nothing about having school cheer experience or being able to perform any particular athletic skills like flips, hand-springs, etc., because they do not do those kinds of things. They mention looking good, being generally fit, and maybe taking a hip-hop class.

Obviously, it's what happens when a cheerleader tries the "risky moves of school cheerleading", but lacks the athleticism and skill they had a few years earlier, when they were school cheerleaders.

Most NFL cheerleaders were not former school cheerleaders, and none other than 1 of the squads on the Ravens perform school type athletic and risky cheers.
School cheerleading is highly dangerous and results in more injuries among teen and early adult females than all sports combined (28,000 emergency room visits per year). So far, we have evidence of 1 almost injury and zero actual injuries to cheerleaders during an NFL game over the last several years.
That tells any reasonable person that NFL cheering has virtually nothing in common athletically with school cheering.

Why is the first response heard when an underpaid person demands equitable pay is, "You're barely worth what you're paid now and are lucky to have a job at all."

That isn't the message of my post at all. In fact, I argued that they probably should get more pay. I am just pointing out the clear and objective wrongness of the claim that NFL cheerleaders are elite and skilled athletes performing feats that few women could. They are very easily replaceable and that is why they have no negotiating leverage. I think they should be paid more despite there being plenty of capable replacements, because I think if a company making such massive profits wants people to perform any job for them, they should be decent enough pay them an hourly wage high enough that a full time time job at that wage wouldn't result in poverty (even if the job in question is itself only part-time). The low skill of NFL cheerleading allows the teams to take advantage of them and pay them shit, but it is their lack of human decency that makes them actually do it just because they can.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Being tossed in the air and hitting the ground is not particularly athletic or skillful. Anyone who isn't too heavy to be thrown can do it with zero training.
When you went hunting on the internet for evidence that NFL cheerleaders are elite and highly skilled athletes doing risky stunts, and you found a single case of 1 NFL cheerleader being injured because she was tossed in the air and hit the ground, it really didn't occur to you that this is not very compelling evidence?
I remember this story, because it was a lead story on almost every news broadcast nation wide, despite the fact that she didn't actually get injured and was released from the hospital after a brief examination. So, why was mere potential cheerleader injury that was far less serious than numerous player injuries that happen every week given so much national attention? It is precisely because even a potential injury of NFL cheerleaders is so uncommon, rare, and unexpected given what they typically do at game that this was big news. I searched "NFL cheerleader injured" and page after page of results showed nothing but this single story with no mention of any injury to any other cheerleader this or any past year.

Its no coincidence this 1 potential injury was on the Baltimore Ravens, because they are the only NFL team with male cheerleaders and the only one that does these kind of lifts and tosses that are standard in school cheerleading. The Ravens have a normal "dance" squad who just giggle and look pretty, plus a co-ed "stunt squad" which is what this woman was on. All other NFL teams only have the female-only look-pretty type squads. Look around at info sites for how to become an NFL cheerleader and they say nothing about having school cheer experience or being able to perform any particular athletic skills like flips, hand-springs, etc., because they do not do those kinds of things. They mention looking good, being generally fit, and maybe taking a hip-hop class.

You said NONE.

YOUR WORD

Once you make absolute statements, the opposition need only show SOME and only ONCE, even if the some is ever so slight, to prove your absolute statement false.

In your striving to prove how much smarter you are than all you survey, you overreach and leave the impression that is just the opposite of what you tried to show.

 

[ronburgundy]

Being tossed in the air and hitting the ground is not particularly athletic or skillful. Anyone who isn't too heavy to be thrown can do it with zero training.
When you went hunting on the internet for evidence that NFL cheerleaders are elite and highly skilled athletes doing risky stunts, and you found a single case of 1 NFL cheerleader being injured because she was tossed in the air and hit the ground, it really didn't occur to you that this is not very compelling evidence?
I remember this story, because it was a lead story on almost every news broadcast nation wide, despite the fact that she didn't actually get injured and was released from the hospital after a brief examination. So, why was mere potential cheerleader injury that was far less serious than numerous player injuries that happen every week given so much national attention? It is precisely because even a potential injury of NFL cheerleaders is so uncommon, rare, and unexpected given what they typically do at game that this was big news. I searched "NFL cheerleader injured" and page after page of results showed nothing but this single story with no mention of any injury to any other cheerleader this or any past year.

Its no coincidence this 1 potential injury was on the Baltimore Ravens, because they are the only NFL team with male cheerleaders and the only one that does these kind of lifts and tosses that are standard in school cheerleading. The Ravens have a normal "dance" squad who just giggle and look pretty, plus a co-ed "stunt squad" which is what this woman was on. All other NFL teams only have the female-only look-pretty type squads. Look around at info sites for how to become an NFL cheerleader and they say nothing about having school cheer experience or being able to perform any particular athletic skills like flips, hand-springs, etc., because they do not do those kinds of things. They mention looking good, being generally fit, and maybe taking a hip-hop class.

You said NONE.

YOUR WORD

And for 31 NFL teams, the cheerleading has NONE of the athleticism, skill, or risk of school cheerleading.
I did not say that all cheerleading on every single team has none of the athleticism. Which is the only statement that your single instance would be relevant to or refute.
If someone says "I love hot dogs." It does not mean that there are no hot dogs anywhere at anytime that the person would not love. It is a statement about what is generally the case. The "None" in my statement was semantically tied to the noun athleticism not to cheerleaders. It means that it is generally true of most of the cheerleading in the NFL that it lacks the athleticism of school cheerleading.

Once you make absolute statements, the opposition need only show SOME and only ONCE, even if the some is ever so slight, to prove your absolute statement false.

If "the opposition" has no interest in sincere intellectual discourse and understanding an issue and justs want to score petty points, then yes, they will respond just as you did and say things without relevance to the actual issue at hand.

In your striving to prove how much smarter you are than all you survey, you overreach and leave the impression that is just the opposite of what you tried to show.

Don' t mistake the fact that I consistently expose the objective wrongness and irrationality of your arguments as an attempt to prove how smart I am. It really doesn't take much smarts to do it, just the minimal concern for fact and reason and not being blinded by ideology.

 

[Togo]

If "the opposition" has no interest in sincere intellectual discourse and understanding an issue and justs want to score petty points, then yes, they will respond just as you did and say things without relevance to the actual issue at hand.
...
Don' t mistake the fact that I consistently expose the objective wrongness and irrationality of your arguments as an attempt to prove how smart I am. It really doesn't take much smarts to do it, just the minimal concern for fact and reason and not being blinded by ideology.

Dude, you're only proving her right. Chill.

 

[ronburgundy]

If "the opposition" has no interest in sincere intellectual discourse and understanding an issue and justs want to score petty points, then yes, they will respond just as you did and say things without relevance to the actual issue at hand.
...
Don' t mistake the fact that I consistently expose the objective wrongness and irrationality of your arguments as an attempt to prove how smart I am. It really doesn't take much smarts to do it, just the minimal concern for fact and reason and not being blinded by ideology.

Dude, you're only proving her right. Chill.

This is a discussion board centered around rational thought and evidence-based argument. The whole point is to expose arguments that lack either or in Athena's case both of those. That is all I did. Athena's tendency to not bother to provide valid evidence or reasoned argument leads her to mistake other people's use of these things as being "show off", when its really just an effort to abide at least minimally to the principles of reasoned discourse.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm a bit surprised you don't feel as if your arguments have entered the areas of desperate and absurd.

Anyone else need a new irony meter?

 

[ksen]

This is a discussion board centered around rational thought and evidence-based argument.

lol, no

 

[lpetrich]

What we are trying to reveal is the unintended consequences of trying to crack down on it in some situations ...

I don't understand this obsessive fear of unintended consequences. But then again, those who cringe in fear of unintended consequences never think about unintended consequences of policies that they like. So it could be "Policies I don't like produce unintended consequences, ha ha! Policies I like producing unintended consequences? <closed mind>"

Sort of like the governor of Georgia who supported a law for cracking down on illegal immigrants, but who could not understand why his state then got a shortage of farm labor.

 

[dismal]

What we are trying to reveal is the unintended consequences of trying to crack down on it in some situations ...

I don't understand this obsessive fear of unintended consequences. But then again, those who cringe in fear of unintended consequences never think about unintended consequences of policies that they like. So it could be "Policies I don't like produce unintended consequences, ha ha! Policies I like producing unintended consequences? <closed mind>"

Sort of like the governor of Georgia who supported a law for cracking down on illegal immigrants, but who could not understand why his state then got a shortage of farm labor.

His point is not about unintended consequences in general but the consequences of this action in particular.

I'm sure (at least I hope) you understand that if your true goal is to help these cheerleaders get more money it's best not to take actions that will cause them to get less money.

However, I guess If your true goal is something else you may be willing for them to suffer the consequences of your actions.