The Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleaders scored the win this time.
The second season of Netflix docuseries America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, which was released Wednesday, reveals the women landed a big raise.
“‘Happy’ isn’t even the right word for it. It kind of felt like a relief, like everything had paid off. And finally, we were done fighting.” former cheerleader Jada McLean said.
Jason Mendez/Getty for Netflix
In season 1, the women talked about their need to work other jobs during their physically demanding and time-consuming tenure on the team, which includes hours of mandatory practices, games, and other appearances.
In the seventh and final episode of this season, Megan McElaney, who’s a fourth-year veteran, explained what had gone down after some of the women approached the organization’s leadership early in the season.
“Our efforts were heard, and they wanted to give us a raise,” the cheerleader from Oceanside, Calif., said. “And we ended up getting a 400 percent increase, which is, like, life-changing.”
Members of the team have lobbied for a pay hike for years. In a 2018 unfair pay lawsuit, former cheerleader Erica Wilkins claimed that she received approximately $7 per hour, no overtime pay, and a flat rate of $200 for each game appearance. In 2019, after Wilkins settled the lawsuit with the team, the cheerleaders received $400 per game, according to the Associated Press.
Forbes magazine named the Cowboys 2024’s most valuable NFL team for the ninth year in a row, at $10.1 billion, in a list released that August.
America’s Sweethearts follows the women, as well as their coach Kelli Finglass (her official title is senior director) and Judy Trammell, their head choreographer, through grueling tryouts and extensive preparation for games.
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Some other things have changed, too, since the team began in 1961 or even since another reality show about the DCC, CMT’s Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team, aired between 2006 and 2021.
The women don’t hear as much about the requirement to keep their bodies looking a certain way, although they do still have to wear those tiny blue and white ensembles.
“Each cheerleader has a custom-made uniform for her shape and they are hand-tailored,” Finglass told E! News in June 2024. “And outside of just trying to make that uniform fit and and have the best, most beautiful lines, we don’t talk about weight or things like that.”
America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is available now on Netflix.