More on the NFL’s Cheerleader Exploitation
By To follow up to Erik’s post, Amanda Hess has a comprehensive roundup of the labor grievances of NFL cheerleaders. In addition to the low pay and huge amounts of unpaid labor required, there’s the humiliating amount of body micromanagement. It’s an outrageous set of practices.
As it happens, I’ve been reading Nicholas Dawidoff’s Collision Low Crossers, which shows similar things about coaching assistants, who are asked to work hours like BigLaw associates for almost nothing. This extremely profitable, generously taxpayer-subsidized league could actually pay all of these people well, but they exploit because they can.
Of course, I’m sure that all these labor cost savings that accrue to the NFL’s benevolent overlords are passed on to the fans, as so many credulous sportswriters have assured me…