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NBA dance teams are still paid ridiculously low amounts for their work, which makes no sense
Most readers of this column will pull out their tiny violin after skimming through this. They’ll probably head down to the comment section to creep up on some poorly-spelled screed about a cheerleaders’ worth, and ironically they’ll be the sort of person who pays unending attention to the cheerleaders during an NBA game. Doesn’t matter, we’re following through on this.
NBA cheerleaders – or, more accurately, NBA dance teams – are not integral to a live NBA showcase. Then again, neither are the boosters who fire T-shirts into the crowd, neither are the Jock Jam songs that blare from the sound system when the home team goes on a 12-2 run, neither is the Jumbotron that just replayed that last and-one, and neither are most concession stands. You don’t really need that $12 microbrew to watch this game, do you?
Dance teams are around, though, a mainstay and a massively respected one. These women aren’t out pushing pom-poms around. They’re working endlessly to script tight and expertly choreographed dance routines bent to fit in during timeouts and breaks in play along the sideline. They have to develop these routines during winter months while wearing next to nothing in giant arenas during afternoon hours when 20,000-strong aren’t in attendance. They have to smile and represent the team during myriad franchise functions, hear catcalls all evening while at work, and put up with unending harassment from team followers who treat them as objects.
They’re also basically working as interns. NBA dancers are paid, but not nearly to the extent that you would expect, or hope for. Kevin Dugan of the New York Post reminded us of much on Tuesday:
Cheerleaders — or dancers as they are called — for the Knicks and for the Brooklyn Nets will pull in $200 or less a game and receive no health insurance coverage from their teams, The Post has learned.
“There is no way to live off that money,” Cherielee Passalaqua, a former New Jersey Nets hype team member who now cheers for the NBA, told The Post.
The meager earnings come to about $25 to $28.50 an hour.
Here’s where the tiny violins come out.
America has a ridiculous wage system that encourages employers to limit workers to low hourly rates that can’t come close to helping bread-winners support a family or even a solitary existence while working at a fast food chain for the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Those fast food chains make far, far more than even the most profitable basketball teams (like, say, “the New York Knicks”), so the typical hamburger outlet employee doesn’t really want to hear about a dance team member getting to work in front of adoring thousands for four times as much per hour as they’d make in the back of a kitchen tearing open a bag of frozen onion rings.
This is an NBA website, though, so we’re not going to dive too deeply into wage imbalance. And just because other professions have it wrong, this doesn’t make these NBA practices right. These women are working for NBA teams that are absolutely printing money right now.
NBA teams are clearing an ungodly amount of money these days, so much that franchise valuations sourced to the most respected of financial publications are still treated as pessimistic at best, while even the most mediocre of franchises (hello, Atlanta Hawks) playing in front of the most apathetic of fan bases (hello, Atlanta Hawks) could be sold this year for a price approaching $1 billion. Again, dance troupes aren’t technically needed, but neither is the ridiculous per diem NBA teams give their millionaire players in cash each day on the road to go grab some Alfredo-based nonsense at the Cheesecake Factory. A per diem – and again, these are for millionaires – that is usually more than half of what big market team dance members make per game.
Earlier this year, Deadspin detailed the ridiculous give and take that NFL cheerleaders have to work through in order to put “2009-2011; Baltimore Ravens Dance Sqaud” on their resume. NBA teams aren’t as well-heeled as NFL franchises, but things aren’t far off, and the idea that these women are working for so little should be infuriating to even the NBA fan (like this guy) that doesn’t give a rat’s tail if there isn’t anything on the sideline beyond a stack of towels and a giant tub of Gatorade.
Dancers staying in that sort of shape? That costs money.
Showing up to that sort of gig, with that sort of expected hairstyle? As someone with a wife who owns a hair salon, let me tell you, that costs money.
The makeup? The tan, in January? The practice hours? The transportation, in the heart of the city? The lost hours for team events and practices that you lose at your day job? This stuff costs money.
Dancers can augment their income in selected team-sponsored events, but that’s hardly much to directly deposit home about. Mock these women and this profession all you want – but these dancers are basically working for stipend money for NBA franchises that are valued for hundreds of millions of dollars. Many, many hundreds of millions of dollars.
Wage disparity between working women and working men is a major issue in North America, and the plight of the NBA dance team member would seem to rank far down the list in the massive queue full of things we need to take care. It’s still something that needs to be changed, though, and we’d love to hear from any former dancer who once had it to the figurative “here” with how much she had to work, prepare for, and deal with in comparison to what she was actually compensated.
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
