\u201cIt\u2019s just been tradition,\u201d Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders choreographer Judy Trammell once told Entertainment Tonight, when she was asked about the shockingly low pay for the team\u2019s exceedingly high-profile cheerleaders. \u201cYou get a better quality of girl,\u201d she continued. \u201cThey\u2019re not doing it for the money. They\u2019re doing it for the love of dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was 1996. The Cowboys were heading to yet another Super Bowl, this time in Tempe, Ariz., where cheerleaders rode in limousines onto the field, exiting the luxury vehicles with big smiles and bigger hair, the portrait of Texas opulence and \u201890s glam. What few in the stands knew, though it was an open secret, was how much the cheerleaders got paid for that performance: nothing. At home games during the season, they made $15. It was a huge deal when the DCC, as they\u2019re known, got a pay bump later in the \u201890s. The most famous cheerleaders in the NFL \u2014 in the world \u2014 now made $50 a game.<\/p>\n
![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/VELWENLFIZG6JDGL2HKKWV3RQU.jpg\")
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders\u2019 (from left) Amy Merriman Lemon, Suzanne Rouse (now Suzanne Saxon), Wendy Newman and Bobbie LaRue ride in a horse-drawn carriage down Commerce St. during the Super Bowl XXVII victory parade on February 9, 1993. An estimated 400,000 people attended.(Irwin Thompson \/ Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n
The second season of America\u2019s Sweethearts shows how today\u2019s cheerleaders broke that tradition, quite dramatically, though the battle stretches back decades. The fight tells us a lot about how the NFL sees women on the sidelines, and how those women see themselves. The New York Times trumpeted<\/a> the wage bump on June 18, the same day the seven-part docuseries hit Netflix. The headline read, \u201cThe Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Get a 400 Percent Pay Raise.\u201d<\/p>\n News Roundups<\/p>\n I texted the link to a \u201870s star cheerleader, who wrote back, \u201cNever thought I\u2019d live to see the day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I would have done it for free\u2019 <\/b><\/p>\n I spent much of 2021 reporting a narrative podcast for Texas Monthly called America\u2019s Girls<\/a>, about the 50-year history and cultural impact of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. I am neither sports expert nor dance enthusiast but a Dallas girl who grew up in thrall to the pretty princesses who ruled my hometown in the late \u201870s and early \u201880s.<\/p>\n Meeting the women behind the mythology came with surprises: how nice they were, how punctual, how funny and articulate, but also how nervous they became to place even the most reasonable critiques on record. <\/p>\n Cheerleaders are rule followers, even if pop culture likes to portray them as wild. I got my hands on a \u201890s-era rule book, thicker than a King James Bible, filled with all-cap mandates. \u201cDON\u2019T POUT!\u201d and \u201cTAKE VITAMINS!\u201d and \u201cDO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING!!!\u201d leapt out from an early page.<\/p>\n Nothing shocked me like the pay issue, though \u2014 not just how little the cheerleaders made, but how controversial nudging that number turned out to be. \u201cWe knew what we were signing up for\u201d was the line I heard most. <\/p>\n A few years before my podcast, in 2017, the Cowboys got smacked by a fair-wage suit<\/a> from three-year veteran Erica Wilkins, part of a wave of cheerleader litigation that swept across the NFL. In 2018, that suit went very public, covered by The Daily Mail and CNN and The New York Post, which included<\/a> the unforgettable detail that in Wilkins\u2019 most lucrative year, the squad paid her about $16,000, while the Cowboys\u2019 mascot Rowdy made closer to $65,000. <\/p>\n The backlash to that lawsuit was fierce \u2014 not against the Cowboys, but against Wilkins, once a swimsuit calendar girl, now the poster child for millennial ingratitude. Cheerleaders from multiple generations circled the wagons on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cI would have done it for free,\u201d Brandi Redmond wrote on Instagram. Redmond cheered in the \u201890s and became a fixture on The Real Housewives of Dallas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was devastating,\u201d Wilkins said, when I called her last week. \u201cIt made me really, really sad. I felt like I was fighting for the good of the organization, but I was being viewed as the \u2018bad guy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Her suit began as class action, meaning other cheerleaders could join, but one by one, they stepped away. \u201cThere was so much fear about taking a stance against the Cowboys,\u201d she told me. \u201cPeople said things like, I think the Cowboys would blackball me. It would ruin my alumni status.\u201d<\/p>\n That fear was reasonable. The DCC alumni group is a lifelong sorority, gathering together hundreds of women for halftime shows and clap-ins, a tradition where former DCCs line up and shake their poms to greet the rookies. Wilkins was no longer welcome at those, much like cheerleaders from the past who\u2019d stepped out of line. They posed for Playboy (long story<\/a>) or left the squad to date Troy Aikman (true story, though it never hit the media). <\/p>\n \u201cI was definitely seen as an outcast,\u201d Wilkins told me. Behind the scenes, she felt support from some of the women she\u2019d cheered with, but they were still on the team, subject to repercussions. In public arenas, she found herself dragged by alumni. <\/p>\n \u201cMaybe there\u2019s a part of them that\u2019s like, dang, why couldn\u2019t it have been me?\u201d she said in a soft voice. \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t I make more money?\u201d<\/p>\n Wilkins is now 33, a married dance instructor. Her mother runs a studio in Friendswood, where Wilkins grew up. Dance was the family\u2019s primary means of support after Wilkins\u2019 father died when she was 13. <\/p>\n In Making the Team, the long-running CMT reality show that predates America\u2019s Sweethearts, Wilkins featured prominently in the 2014 season CHECK. She\u2019s a gorgeous dancer, part of a generation who honed their skills on high school drill teams and competitive college squads. (Wilkins went to LSU, a great dance school.) <\/p>\n The Cowboys privately settled her lawsuit in 2019, but the settlement included squad reform. The Cowboys gave their current cheerleaders a raise, from $200 a game to $400, and from $8 an hour to $12. That the cheerleaders even got paid wages for rehearsals was news to many former DCCs, who\u2019d sweat through plastic jogging pants (to lose weight) in un-air-conditioned studios (to prep for the heat) in full makeup and nails (per the rules) and never got paid a dime for that hustle. <\/p>\n It was never clear to me if those cheerleaders didn\u2019t think they deserved better pay or had merely swallowed the line that the money didn\u2019t exist. Maybe it\u2019s true, in the \u201870s and \u201880s, that proceeds made by the cheerleaders got funneled into travel and splashy TV appearances that didn\u2019t pay as much as you\u2019d imagine.<\/p>\n But the Cowboys had somehow retained this spirit of sacrifice into an insanely profitable era. Jerry Jones<\/a> transformed the brand known as America\u2019s Team into the most lucrative sports franchise on planet Earth, worth nearly $11 billion. How could a rapaciously capitalist enterprise expect their cheerleaders to stagger along as starving artists?<\/p>\n Nobody could say, with a straight face, the cheerleaders didn\u2019t deserve more. What they could say \u2014 and often did \u2014 was that money wasn\u2019t the point.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve had a change of heart\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n One of the most intense debates I had while making my podcast was with a charming \u201880s vet named Dana Presley Killmer, who has the distinction<\/a> of being the favorite cheerleader of legendary sports broadcaster Dale Hansen. I sat in Killmer\u2019s East Texas home, on a golf course, where she served rare London-broil mini sliders and cookies and toured me around her memorabilia, some of which made me squeal. <\/p>\n But we went head-to-head (politely) on the lawsuit, which she saw as entitled and backstabbing, and I saw as possibly the only way to move a stubborn needle. I admire Dana, who works as an executive of sales these days, so I reached out to her after news about the pay bump. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had a change of heart,\u201d she told me, in her smooth alto. \u201cWhen I was there 40 years ago, we were just a bunch of hometown girls. We didn\u2019t train for this our entire lives.\u201d Killmer tried out on a whim, after her then-husband told her she\u2019d never make the team. She did, and they got divorced. (She\u2019s remarried now, happily.)<\/p>\n Back in the \u201870s and \u201880s, a common stereotype of the cheerleaders portrayed them as beautiful bobble heads with bangin\u2019 bodies. I\u2019m sure some were, but I\u2019ve come to think of those DCCs as akin to the female Navy SEALs \u2014 top-tier in the feminine arts of poise, look-but-don\u2019t-touch sexuality, dance, goodwill. Killmer fits that mold. She was a talented singer, who often closed out shows on their USO Tours with \u201cGod Bless the USA.\u201d She was so good on her toes she once filled in for Kathie Lee Gifford at a telethon. <\/p>\n In those days, making the cut did not require years of expensive training, summer camps and private clinics. The first season of America\u2019s Sweethearts helped open Dana\u2019s eyes to the financial investment and the squad\u2019s global reach. On a work trip to New York last summer, she was taken aback to see an instructor near the Hudson River teaching people the DCC signature routine, \u201cThunderstruck.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe cheerleaders are more popular today than they\u2019ve ever been,\u201d she told me. \u201cThe Cowboys are worth more than any other franchise, and the cheerleaders are a big part of that. Even when the players have a bad season, the world still watches the cheerleaders.\u201d<\/p>\n Dana had been texting with DCC vets who did not agree. \u201cThey feel like the girls are asking too much,\u201d she told me. They should be grateful. That was the line she heard.<\/p>\n One way to view the fight over cheerleader pay is as a generational standoff. One group makes the path easier for the next, who makes it softer for the next, to the point where the path has gotten so rosy the old-timers don\u2019t understand why everyone\u2019s complaining. <\/p>\n A \u201890s cheerleader named Cheryl Crosby is in favor of the bump. Her 11-year-old daughter Angelina is a Junior DCC at Kitty Carter\u2019s Dance Factory, one of many North Texas studios that hone the dance skills of young hopefuls. <\/p>\n \u201cThe investment is pricey, with acrobatic and dance training,\u201d said Crosby. I asked for a number, but she just said, \u201cQuite a bit.\u201d <\/p>\n In her own cheer days, when she was Cheryl Gates, she ran a high-end hair salon. How she managed this, I\u2019m still not sure. She skipped off-the-field experiences like show group, the elite squad of dancers who take USO Tours. But in her final year, then-director Kelli Finglass<\/a> convinced her to join a special USO tour. The cheerleaders headed to Andrews Air Force Base, where they linked up with celebrities like \u201870s football player Terry Bradshaw, \u201880s supermodel Christie Brinkley, \u201890s MTV star Downtown Julie Brown and then-secretary of defense William Cohen. The tour took them to Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo and the aircraft carrier USS Bataan in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n Some experiences defy dollar signs. It may have been a love of dance, as Judy Trammell told Entertainment Tonight, that drew cheerleaders to the sidelines, but it was also a love of the game, a desire for status and sisterhood, bright lights and bucket-list experiences. Cheerleaders across eras have tales about meeting Marie Osmond or Kacey Musgraves<\/a>, appearing on Family Feud or Jimmy Fallon<\/a>, USO Tours in Lebanon and swimsuit calendar shoots in Aruba. <\/p>\n But there were other traditions on the DCC: grousing about being broke, selling free hair care products to make rent, going without insurance for years (stories I heard from alums, most of whom did not go on the record, lest they get exiled). <\/p>\n Away from the stadium, a class hierarchy existed, where some cheerleaders enjoyed the support of rich parents, while others teetered on bankruptcy. \u201cIt\u2019s just been tradition\u201d may have cut it in the late \u201890s (somehow), but by the girl-boss 21st century, some traditions had to change. <\/p>\n The birth of the sexy cheerleader<\/b><\/p>\n The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders burst into history in 1972 in white hot pants and blue halter tops, the first professional cheerleaders to flash such skin. They got $15 a game, and nobody considered this strange, because nobody knew what this would become. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll fill up my tank and buy me a Slurpee,\u201d joked Vonciel Baker, one of the original seven, when I interviewed her in 2021. <\/p>\n Actually, the Cowboys had cheerleaders from its early years, but they were high school girls in button-downs and bobby socks. They got two tickets a game, not much skin off the Cowboys\u2019 back, since the upstart team was still struggling to fill the Cotton Bowl. <\/p>\n That changed in 1972. The Cowboys had won their first Super Bowl, and the team debuted a new kind of cheerleader: Older girls, 18-25, in a uniform so eye-catching it became iconic. The reboot came thanks to an ingenious woman named Dee Brock, a fashion model and English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School, married to the Dallas Times-Herald columnist, Bob Brock. <\/p>\n Dee left the Cowboys in 1975 to pursue other dreams: She got a PhD in English, taught at El Centro and eventually moved to Washington, DC, for a job at PBS. In 1976, the cheerleaders got a new director, a go-getter who\u2019d worked for the U.S. Olympic ski team, but she was in a wandering period. Her name was Suzanne Mitchell. <\/p>\n The 2017 documentary Daughters of the Sexual Revolution is an exhilarating portrait of Mitchell\u2019s impact on the squad. She was mother, mentor, coach, therapist, what kids today might call a boss-bitch. Mitchell was hired as general manager Tex Schramm\u2019s secretary, but Schramm dumped the cheerleaders in her lap, and she steered them into the stars. <\/p>\n The cheerleaders became a machine: full hair and makeup for rehearsals, weight tracked like a drill sergeant, no jeans (no jeans!). The girls respected her, even if they hated her guts, and though she died in 2016, late-in-life interviews prove her to be wise, witty and refreshingly frank, every bit as ferocious in her love of those cheerleaders as she was in her expectations of them.<\/p>\n Mitchell is the engine behind the cheerleaders\u2019 pop-culture explosion, with their own hit made-for-TV movie (whose script she approved) and appearances on The Love Boat and the Jerry Lewis Telethon. The daughter of a military man, Mitchell headed up the USO Christmas trips, where cheerleaders performed for soldiers overseas on the most American of holidays. <\/p>\n \u201cWe used to joke about the money,\u201d Debbie Hansen told me. Hansen worked as Schramm\u2019s secretary after the cheerleaders started spilling across Mitchell\u2019s nights and weekends. Hansen was paid $800 a month, half of what she\u2019d made as a legal secretary. The gig seemed interesting, though. \u201cI\u2019m always up for a new adventure,\u201d she told me. <\/p>\n At the time, she was Debbie Bond, and the cheerleaders nicknamed her \u201c007,\u201d because they never knew where she\u2019d show up. She eventually became Mitchell\u2019s trusty second-in-command with the DCC. The duo ran the cheerleaders until 1989, when a certain Jerry Jones came knocking. <\/p>\n In Mitchell\u2019s decade-plus tenure, cheerleader pay never budged, in part because the number of women auditioning ballooned. Thousands of hopefuls lined up outside Texas Stadium each year for the chance to make $15 a game. <\/p>\n What would be the incentive to change?<\/p>\n A modest uprising<\/b><\/p>\n There was one incident, though it\u2019s largely been memory-holed. It was likely early 1980, and the cheerleaders\u2019 image had been plastered on so much merchandise you could fill an aisle at Target. Playing cards, chewing gum, calendars, posters, Frisbees. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019d gone into Mr. Schramm\u2019s office,\u201d said Hansen. \u201cThey kind of did it behind Suzanne\u2019s back.\u201d <\/p>\n Hansen remembers this modest uprising as an attempt to oust Mitchell; it\u2019s been told to me by one participant and a then-squad member as an attempt to get more money, given the merchandising powerhouse the cheerleaders had become. It was probably both.<\/p>\n Nothing came of it. Mitchell stayed in command, and the \u201880s saw the launch of a Little Miss DCC clothing line for girls, whose most popular item was a blue satin jacket.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all worked for nothing back then,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cThere were no sponsors. If we wanted something, the Cowboys wrote a check.\u201d <\/p>\n Her understanding is that nobody got rich off this venture: Not Suzanne, not her, not even the Cowboys, who, according to Hansen, didn\u2019t own the licensing for football products at the time, so they didn\u2019t made that much bank. (I was unable to fact-check this and am now quite curious.) <\/p>\n \u201cSuzanne would buy me clothes and give me furniture,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone in the Cowboys office was overworked and underpaid.\u201d<\/p>\n Enter Jerry Jones<\/b><\/p>\n Hansen tells a story about walking into Tex Schramm\u2019s office. This was the \u201880s, as cable ramped up. Schramm is one of the primary figures in transforming football from a stadium experience to the most popular live spectacle on television. That day, his body was slumped. <\/p>\n \u201cFootball will never be the same,\u201d he told her. \u201cIt\u2019s all going to be about making money now.\u201d<\/p>\n Cable changed the rules of the game. When Herschel Walker signed with the Cowboys in 1986, he got a five-year, $5 million contract, unprecedented at the time. Over the next decades, the numbers kept climbing. Schramm was correct that the Cowboys were reaching the end of an era. In 1989, a new sheriff rode into town, and he changed a lot more than the rules.<\/p>\n Jerry Jones\u2019 purchase of the team is one of the great showdowns in sports lore. There are many ways to spin this moment. Old dog, meet new tricks. Monday Night Football, meet ESPN SportsCenter. Stoic 20th-century tradition, meet the fast-and-loose 21st century.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/HP6LH4Z5RH7NRGNQPYTURDWJTE.jpg\")
The 1977 poster of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders sold more than 1 million copies and found a permanent home in the Smithsonian on Feb. 26, 2018.(Bob Shaw \/ Courtesy Bob Shaw)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/H2XBEA5FFFLJ7SXUE5LRQ5ETPY.jpg\")
A 2017 calendar release party at Glass Cactus with cheerleader Erica Wilkins, who later sued the Cowboys.(Jerry McClure)<\/p>\n![\"Cheerleader](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4IQIYHAWK5EMDEQUHZ5FTZONXA.jpg\")
Cheerleader Erica Wilkins settled her lawsuit against the Cowboys in 2019. Part of that settlement included getting the current cheerleaders a pay bump. She is no longer allowed at alumni events.(courtesy Erica Wilkins)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/HQSZO7IM6VG6JHVCDR5HZMDYYA.jpg\")
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders performing jump splits.(Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/JMUJPRPNGVE7VHJN67LRYLYRTE.jpg\")
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Dana Presley Killmer, photographed on the sidelines during the ’80s.(courtesy Dana Presley Killmer)<\/p>\n![\"Junior](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/HSL6F45LGFHR7NOJ2RYJXAJR2I.jpg\")
Junior DCC Angelina Crosby (with her back to camera) chats with cheerleaders from the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ 2022-2023 squad. Her mother Cheryl was a cheerleader in the ’90s.(courtesy Cheryl Crosby)<\/p>\n![\"Cheerleader](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/ZQYVOC36HFFVBHYZH6V6JGKZHY.jpg\")
Cheerleader Cheryl Crosby (then Cheryl Gates) on a special USO Tour to perform for troops overseas.(courtesy Cheryl Crosby)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GOFN5QX4Y5H5FLRJXND6HSPDXA.jpg\")
The 1972 squad pic of the first professional Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: (clockwise, from top right) Deanovoy Nichols, Anna Carpenter, Vonciel Baker, Rosy Hall, Dolores McAda, Carrie O’Brien. At center: Dixie Smith(courtesy Carrie O’Brien)<\/p>\n![\"Tex](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/7JNYX32X7QUPASYLPQKAHJJGU4.jpg\")
Tex Schramm and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in 1979. (David Woo \/ Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n![\"Suzanne](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/QOBPKWELHJFJFPKMXXN3SNDIJE.jpg\")
Suzanne Mitchell (right) and Debbie Hansen (then Debbie Bond) during their days running the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.(courtesy Debbie Hansen)<\/p>\n![\"Jerry](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/5NAACFST7ZH3BERV7RMW26ZHC4.jpg\")
Jerry Jones takes a question during a 1989 press conference at Valley Ranch announcing him as the new owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Tex Schramm (standing) and H.R. “Bum” Bright (seated) are in the background.(Richard Michael Pruitt \/ Staff photographer)<\/p>\n
![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MCELXCMOEBDJ5DQIH3KCY7I5WQ.jpg\")
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders perform during the second half of an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Arlington.(Smiley N. Pool \/ Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n![\"Cheerleaders](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/CXP6Q2NBGJBLPPRRQVRHC2FA7Q.jpg\")
Cheerleaders director Kelli Finglass (left) and choreographer Judy Trammell (right) featured in season two of the Netflix’s docuseries ‘America’s Sweethearts,’ about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.(courtesy Netflix \/ Courtesy of Netflix)<\/p>\n![\"Jada](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/ZIRHQPZZMVA7RPL3T7YNMUUQR4.jpg\")
Jada McLean, center, helps lead the charge for fair pay in “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” season two.(Netflix)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/CREJC3R5KVHYRIYOKPHISIL4QM.jpg\")
A scene from season two of the Netflix docuseries ‘America’s Sweethearts,’ about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.(courtesy Netflix \/ Courtesy of Netflix)<\/p>\n