*harassment
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/sports/nfl-cheerleaders.html#click=https://t.co/5XFPiQ1lj9
More in the article. Sorry for the typo, harassment fit in the post preview but didnt show up when I posted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/sports/nfl-cheerleaders.html#click=https://t.co/5XFPiQ1lj9
Several N.F.L. teams determined cheerleading programs had a scarcity problem on game days. If cheerleaders were on the sideline dancing, none were available to serve as scantily clad hostesses who could mingle with fans high up in the cheap seats or in the luxury suites, where teams catered to big-money customers.
To address that shortcoming, some teams created a different kind of cheerleading team — one whose members did not do any cheering or require any dance training. They were hired mainly for their appearance. Their visits with male fans, the teams believed, produced a better game-day experience, akin to the approach of the Hooters restaurant chain.
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.
"It's a really big secret, and now you know about it," said Jackie Chambers, 33, a model with more than a decade of experience who worked as a Houston Texans noncheering cheerleader last season. "But teams don't want fans to know about it. All of the cheerleaders are supposed to blend in with each other."
But the N.F.L. has veered in the opposite direction, led by the Redskins, who were among the pioneers of using attractive women to ostensibly work as cheerleaders but, as one former ambassador put, actually serve as "eye candy" for male fans.
Around the early-to-mid 2000s, the Redskins began hiring women as ambassadors from the group of women who didn't make the cheerleading squad, and they still do today. The tryouts haven't changed much, if at all. In an extra judging session, those women were required, like pageant contestants, to walk in bikinis in front of suite holders and sponsors who held score sheets. They also had to answer several questions that showed that, as the Redskins' website stated, they had "great public relations skills."
"The Redskins wanted to come up with extra ways to make money, so they dreamed up the idea of the ambassadors," said one woman who was one. "We were made to look almost exactly like cheerleaders, but we weren't a member of that society. We didn't get the perks of dancing. We were just low-paid, underappreciated, exploited moneymakers in a huge moneymaking scheme."
She added: "We wore low-cut tops with cutouts and your butt cheeks would be sticking out the back. That's how they sell the suites."
The ambassadors were an inexpensive way to monetize the cheerleader concept. They weren't invited on the annual calendar shoot held on an exotic beach. They didn't require hours of practice to perfect their routines or multiple uniforms for game-day dances. While the cheerleaders' white boots had rhinestone-encrusted heels, the ambassadors had to buy the rhinestones and glue them on to their own boots during a night billed as "team bonding."
In interviews with six former Redskins ambassadors, the women described the job as being more of a sexualized saleswoman than a cheerleader.
More in the article. Sorry for the typo, harassment fit in the post preview but didnt show up when I posted.
