The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are getting a 400 percent raise, one of the members said during the second season of the Netflix series “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.”
“Happy’ isn’t even the right word for it,” former cheerleader Jada McLean said on the show, via the Associated Press. “I think I was just . . kind of felt, like, a relief, like everything had paid off. And it was, you know, finally, we were done fighting.”
The cheerleaders have fought for pay increases for years.
The Cowboys settled a lawsuit with a former cheerleader in 2019 that led to the squad doubling their per-game pay from $200 to $400.
“Our efforts were heard and they wanted to give us a raise,” four-year veteran Megan McElaney said on the show. “And we ended up getting a 400 percent increase, which is like, life-changing.”
The Cowboys agreed to pay four cheerleaders a total of $2.4 million nine years ago to settle claims by the women that then-public relations executive Rich Dalrymple filmed them in the dressing room. Dalrymple denied the claims but retired shortly before the settlement became public in a 2022 ESPN story.
The Cowboys are the world’s most valuable sports team, according to Forbes magazine, with a valuation of $10.1 billion as of late last year.
