{"id":146208,"date":"2025-06-21T00:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T00:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/146208\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T00:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T00:30:11","slug":"dallas-cowboys-cheerleaders-just-got-a-life-changing-raise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/146208\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Just Got a \u201cLife-Changing\u201d Raise"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s episode of \u201cIt\u2019s About Dang Time,\u201d we\u2019re pleased to report that the fan-favorite Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders received a jaw-dropping (and totally deserved) 400 percent raise last season.<\/p>\n

News of the applaudable pay upgrade came in season two, episode seven, of Netflix\u2019s America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders<\/a>. <\/p>\n

During the episode, Megan McElaney, who has been on the squad for four years, revealed that the DCC Director, Kelli Finglass, called a meeting to discuss their pay.<\/p>\n

“We ended up getting a 400 percent raise, which is life-changing,” five-year Dallas Cowboys Cheer veteran Jada McLean said in the episode. <\/p>\n

This news comes as a sigh of relief for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and women in sports everywhere, many of whom are still fighting for fair pay. In 2018, former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Erica Wilkins filed a fair pay dispute, highlighting the unfair wages the squad earned, especially in comparison to their male counterparts. (According to Erica, at the time, cheerleaders were paid $8 an hour, while the team\u2019s mascot, a man, earned $25.)<\/p>\n

\"america's\"pinterest\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Courtesy of Netflix \u00a9 2025<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prestige, that’s great,\u201d Erika said in the lawsuit, according to CBS News<\/a>. \u201cBut at the end of the day, that prestige doesn’t pay the bills or pay the rent, and we have to be paid livable wages\u2026 We are considered part-time employees\u2026 but, the time requirements that they expect from us is full-time. The late-night practices that run until 2:00 to 3:00 in the morning. Those things add up, and we deserve to be compensated for the hours that we put in.\u201d<\/p>\n

At long last, that day has finally come. While exact numbers haven\u2019t been revealed, Jada said that veteran cheerleaders could now be making upwards of $75 an hour. In 2024, she told the New York Times that she made $15 an hour and $500 for each appearance, so that\u2019s quite the jump (or shall we say, DCC high kick). Cheers to America’s Sweethearts!<\/p>\n

Related Stories\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she\u2019s heavily covered a range of lifestyle topics, including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness, and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a B.A. in Media: Production, Consumption, and Critique, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she’s not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer\u2019s markets and antique sales, collecting colored glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket-list cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In today\u2019s episode of \u201cIt\u2019s About Dang Time,\u201d we\u2019re pleased to report that the fan-favorite Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[32643,33776,230,229,257,2461,7322,7,7321,6,33775],"class_list":{"0":"post-146208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-content-type-news","9":"tag-contentid-bf4ff9c9-5000-48e8-aa41-f36ae378e0a4","10":"tag-cowboys","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-cowboys","13":"tag-dallascowboys","14":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-locale-us","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-shorttitle-dallas-cowboys-cheerleaders-got-a-huge-raise"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114718534936836172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}