At the Super Bowl on Sunday, there will be a number of people on the field besides the players. Besides the mascots, the waterboys, the referees, the coaches, the medical teams, and the half-time show celebrities, another group of athletes will travel in with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles: the cheerleaders. Chiefs Cheer and the Philadelphia Eagles Cheer Squad — formerly known as the Eaglettes and the Liberty Belles — will be performing athletic feats for which they have trained over a number of years (the Chiefs feature one cheerleader who is in her sixth year of representing the team, and multiple fifth-year performers.) Such squads often practice for 40 hours a week, all through the season. Their high-impact exercise routines come with a very real danger of lifelong injuries. And they are usually the lowest-paid workers in the stadium.
Professional cheerleaders make on average $150 per game, or $22,500 a year, according to NBC. Classified as independent contractors, the cheer squad are not required to be paid by the NFL (or the NBA) in line with minimum wage laws. Yet the football players for whom they cheer make an average of $2.7 million per season, with sky-high salaries in the multi-millions for star quarterbacks and lower — yet still substantial — payments of rookies who are just starting out. Those rookies are still guaranteed to make a minimum wage of $480,000.
