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Reminder: NBA cheerleaders aren't paid nearly enough
The NBA is a multi-billion league featuring a legion of teams that are worth anywhere from half a billion to $2 billion apiece, run by owners who are mostly billionaries at this point.
And they pay their cheerleaders what essentially amounts to a stipend.
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We’ve discussed this before, when the New York Post relayed that a cheerleader’s seemingly solid per-game take dissipates quickly once the hours of expected practice, the unpaid promotional work for the team on off-days, and massive personal upkeep that it takes to act as the prettiest person in the arena are factored in. To say nothing of no health insurance, for most.
Comedian and podcaster Tess Barker recently went undercover as a prospective Los Angeles Clippers dancer in a must-read column over at Jezebel. We’d like to cut and paste the entire thing into this, and here are but a few choice snippets:
I bought fake tanner and tiny spandex shorts. I ate salads and avoided beer for two weeks. Then, on a Sunday June afternoon, after spending hours in the mirror—gluing fake eyelashes, straightening my hair, scrutinizing my stomach—I walked into the old but well-kept dance studio in Torrance where the Clippers Spirit Team rehearses.
I paid my $50 registration fee and joined the 50 dancers on the floor, who were all bent over in deep forward folds. I looked for a spot where I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, as we all tacitly fixated on ourselves and then each other. Beyonce’s “Diva” played over the quiet: A diva is a female version of a hustler.
data-textannotation-id="c7011aa4c99927490b0187c8ac7bed2c">Audrea Harris, a petite African-American woman, stepped in front of us, and the music shut off. We stood. In head-to-toe Clippers gear, she moved with authority, but spoke with a nervous hesitance: “I just want you guys to have fun. This is supposed to be a fun day.” Later, in the Q&A section of the workshop, she would tell us, unexpectedly timid: “We do pay you. It’s not much. But we do pay you.”
The specific amount of pay would be disclosed only to those who made the audition’s finals. Prior to those finals, however, the Clipper rep offered some helpful advice:
When the Clippers Spirit dance team was done being pure lightning, they slumped down on folding chairs and became human again. “You’ll have to have a second job. All these girls have second jobs. Or they’re in school. Or both,” Audrea told us.
[…]
Whatever we did to supplement our mystery sub-standard wage, the girls made it clear that the Clippers were to come first. Rehearsals were mandatory. Games were mandatory, and we would have to arrive at Staples center two and a half hours prior to games for court rehearsals and a make-up pat-down and a meet-and-greet at on the floor.
(There’s so much more at this feature, which as either an NBA fan, someone with an interest in wage imbalance or common human decency, you need to read. Barker is also hilarious on Twitter, we should point out.)
Barker goes on to point out that most cheerleaders have flexible second jobs, not unlike the ones anonymous actors often take on so as to duck out for rehearsals or shows. Even briefly-tenured Broadway actors, Barker relays, still are provided with adequate health insurance and at the very least a living wage.
The dancers in question are doing what they truly love, not unlike the would-be actor or comedy writer working as a page or intern on a television show in other lightly-paid fields of entertainment. Those struggling types only have to caffeinate their way through a double shift at their real job before donning a blue page’s jacket, or find enough dough at The Gap to scrounge together a casual outfit appropriate enough to fetch Mr. Fallon’s coffee in.
As we referenced in October, it costs money to look cheerleader-great, and to dance as well as these women do. There have to be long hours in the gym, personal and unpaid-for upkeep, expensive hair extensions, and costly hours away from the other job spent propping up the team’s image at functions or rehearsing for actual games. At the end of it, these dancers are lucky to break even.
That’s how most internships go, though. The difference here is that this is an internship without a future.
The NBC page can go on to write and act in ‘The Office’ and someday develop her own show. Other entertainment intern-types routinely go onto securing gigs in the industry, be it behind or in front of the camera. The corporate world is a different animal, but it shares in its comparison with the entertainment world in that you can keep building your resume well into your late 30s and 40s, unlike these dancers.
NBA teams clearly see these dancers as replaceable at best and pointless at worst. Why else would they pass on skimming just a bit more off of that bottom line in order to pay these women an appropriate wage? Remember, this is a league that still gives players making $25 million a year a fat per diem on the road in order to pay for meals, prior to the team stocking the locker room with meals and other accommodations both before and after games.
Barker even found one team, the Orlando Magic, that was just out and out flippant about what they expected these prospective dance crew members to contribute:
None of the 30 NBA teams’ sites disclose their dancers’ salaries, though some, like the Orlando Magic’s, hint at the team’s “lots of hours, little pay,” policy by describing the position as “a part-time job that requires a full-time commitment.”
We won’t get into the needless sexualization of the NBA’s in-stadium entertainment package, that’s a distressing conversation for another day.
What we should talk about here is decency, however (sadly) still uncommon. That the women that occupy the court for a third or even more of an NBA game should get paid appropriately for their work.
Hell, I’m sure they’d even settle for 77 cents on Kobe’s dollar.
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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
