NFL Cheerleader Salaries: Pay and the Lawsuits

NFL cheerleader pay has never been the glamorous figure the sideline suggests. For years it was kept low and largely undisclosed, until a wave of wage lawsuits starting in 2014 dragged the actual numbers into court filings. The headline case, brought by the Oakland Raiderettes, revealed contracts worth roughly $125 a home game — a rate that fell below minimum wage once all the unpaid hours were counted, and that ended in a $1.25 million settlement.

That case is the reason we can talk about NFL cheerleader pay at all with real figures rather than rumour. Most teams still do not publish what they pay, so the court record remains the clearest window into the economics of the job.

What NFL cheerleaders actually earn

The most reliable numbers come from the Raiderettes litigation, because they are documented in a legal complaint rather than a team press release. Under the contract challenged in 2014, a Raiderette was paid a flat $125 per home game — about $1,250 for the season. Nothing was paid for the weekly rehearsals, the mandatory charity appearances (around ten a season), or the full nine-hour game days.

Do that arithmetic and the hourly rate collapsed to under $5 an hour, well beneath California’s then-minimum wage. After the suit, the Raiders’ audition materials advertised $9 an hour, and every team now has to at least comply with minimum-wage law. Beyond the base rate, cheerleaders can earn appearance fees and personal endorsements, but those vary enormously by individual and are not part of the salary teams pay.

The lawsuit that changed the pay

Lacy T. filed the first Raiderettes suit in January 2014. Her claim was not that the money was small in the abstract, but that it was illegal: the contract paid below minimum wage once every required hour was counted, withheld pay until the end of the season, and forced cheerleaders to cover their own expenses.

Item	Detail
Contracted pay	$125 per home game ($1,250 / season)
Effective hourly rate alleged	Under $5/hour
Settlement	Up to $1.25 million
Cheerleaders covered	~90 women who cheered 2010–2013
Individual payouts	~$2,000 to $30,000, by seasons served

The Raiders settled in September 2014 for up to $1.25 million. The case opened the door for similar claims against the Buffalo Bills — whose Jills squad suspended operations that same year — and other franchises, and it pushed California to weigh a specific law classifying cheerleaders as employees rather than contractors.

The teams that field no squad at all

Not every NFL team even has cheerleaders. Heading into the 2025 season, eight teams have no cheerleading squad: the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Chargers.

The reasons vary. The Giants are the only franchise reported never to have had a squad. The Packers and Steelers had cheerleaders decades ago and disbanded them, with cold-weather home stadiums often cited as a practical factor. The Bills’ squad went dark in the middle of the same 2014 wage dispute that engulfed the Raiders.

Cheerleaders versus mascots and players

The starkest way to frame NFL cheerleader pay is by comparison. A team mascot is typically a full-time or near-full-time salaried employee; a cheerleader has historically been a part-time, game-day contractor paid per appearance. So the costumed mascot has often out-earned the trained dancer performing beside them — one of the inequities the lawsuits put on the record.

Against player pay the gap is a chasm, but that comparison flatters no support role. The more useful takeaway is that the sideline job marketed as a dream was, for years, structured to pay less than the law allowed — and it took litigation, not goodwill, to fix the floor. For how pay works elsewhere in the sport, see our look at the richest football clubs and the most valuable sports teams in the world.