Does The NFL Love or Hate Cheerleaders?

For many people, football just isn’t the same without cheerleaders. Once you reach a professional level though, you notice that some teams don’t bother, and that other teams have harsh words about the squads. After being noticeably absent from last year’s Super Bowl, NFL cheerleaders returned to the field this year. You have to wonder, what is with the love/hate relationship that the NFL has with cheerleaders? You can’t watch the Super Bowl without seeing multiple references to cheerleaders‚ even if they aren’t on the sidelines. You’ll see them in the pre-game promotions and the most buzzed about commercial season of the year. This year you also saw them represented on the half time show stage, when Madonna and company shook metallic pom poms during the performance. And it didn’t stop there! Jimmy Fallon’s late night show aired live from Indianapolis after the game, and featured the cheerleaders for the Indianapolis Colts. Yet, despite the popular showing of cheerleaders, a total of 6 sports teams don’t have professional cheer squads. At this year’s game, you may have seen the cheerleaders for the New England Patriots, but not the New York Giants. That is because the Giants are one of the cheerleader-less teams. The other teams without cheerleaders are the Packers, Steelers, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions. Clearly there is a common factor of colder climate for these teams, but some teams also claim that they feel squads distract from keeping the focus on the field, or that the fan’s don’t support an official squad. Not having cheerleaders is a team’s choice, but some teams take it a step further. In 2010, Giants co-owner John Mara told the New York Times that “Philosophically we have always had issues with sending scantily clad women out on the field to entertain our fans.” Ouch. It is true that one of the things some professional squads are known for is their barely-there uniforms, but that is also a choice. NFL cheerleaders would be just as entertaining and popular if a team decided to put them in more modest uniforms. Blaming their decision to not have a squad on having issues with the cheerleading uniforms is the easy way out, since that is not a requirement. Oh, and let’s not forget all the other things that these cheer squads do for our youth, our soldiers and our communities. Year-round, the women on these squads hold cheer camps for disabled and sick children, raise the spirits of our troops and donate money that they raise by making appearances and holding events. It’s tough to say that the NFL simply loves or hates cheerleaders, or the idea of cheerleaders. It’s more accurate to say that some individual, decision-making people associated with the NFL are for cheerleaders, and some are against them. Since cheerleading is not officially recognized as a sport, there are no industry-wide regulations that support or ban the use of a cheer squad. Even in the NFL, each professional team will have their own tryout process and set of rules. Sources: Yahoo! Sports The Daily Caller