
Originally Posted by
gameover
I hadn't planned to post any further in this thread, but if folks are gonna continue to direct comments at me, let me just respond with a couple comments.
Audrey, I don't dispute that the cheerleading you are referring to requires great skill, great commitment and a huge amount of practice. I have seen cheerleader competitions on ESPN, and they are amazing to watch. It certainly is as difficult as any other sport. I am not disputing that. However, cheerleading in the NFL is nothing like it, at least at the games I've been to or seen on TV. Essentially, in the NFL, they stand on the sidelines and shake pom poms. They do a little more than that, but not much. They do none of the physical routines that you are describing.
Perhaps extortion is too strongly charged word to use, but my point is, that from a legal perspective, they are not employees, they are volunteers. They are trying to use the legal system to change that to be treated as an employee. One of my pet peeves is the frivolous law suits that plague America today. Getting burned by MCDonald's coffee and suing for millions of dollars. Guess what, coffee is supposed to be hot.
Right or wrong, the NFL doesn't consider it a job worth paying for. If you don't want to cheerlead for them as a volunteer, move on. They are not obligated to create a new job/position called cheerleader. In fact, there are many women who would kill for the chance to be a volunteer cheerleader. They turn away thousands every year.
If the legal system decides that this is, in fact a job, and not a volunteer position, then the NFL would have to either pay minimum wage, or cancel the cheerleading squads. Most likely, if the NFL is forced to treat cheerleading as a job, they will just cancel the squads.
Consider, that even if the NFL kept the cheerleaders and paid minimum wage, that would still amount to a very part time job, certainly not enough to live on. They practice twice a week for 4 hours, and they perform at 8 home games per year. So this job would be for 11 hours per week for eight weeks. That's about 88 hours per year of paid time (plus any special appearances). A regular job is 1,680 hours per year.
Is 88 hours a year a job or a hobby? Is there more value to the cheerleaders to get the exposure and future career benefits from the prestige of being an NFL cheerleader as a cheerleader, or to risk all that for the chance to be paid minimum wage for 88 hours per year? Especially given that the NFL seems inclined to just cancel the squads rather than deal with this.
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