Thursday, May 31, 2018

"N.F.L.’s Alternate ‘Cheerleaders’ Don’t Cheer or Dance"

NYT:
In interviews with a dozen women who have worked for N.F.L. teams as noncheering cheerleaders and six others who had direct knowledge of the noncheering squads, they described minimum-wage jobs in which harassment and groping were common, particularly because the women were required to be on the front lines of partying fans. The fans had no reason to believe these women were not actual cheerleaders because the women often dressed exactly like the cheerleaders dancing on the field or nearly the same.

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The Ravens don’t hide the existence of a team of women — called the Playmakers — who might look and dress like cheerleaders but are actually marketers.

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In the Redskins’ online sales video for these suites, they feature photos of suite owners posing with the team’s cheerleader ambassadors. Having close interaction with the ambassadors is a tacit perk of the elite club. As a voice-over in the video says, “membership has its privileges,” the video pans over a photo of a woman in a bikini.

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“You thought it was going to be so glamorous and glitzy, like what the Cowboys’ cheerleaders have