Nicely earlier than the second season of America’s Sweethearts premiered on Netflix this week, I knew what I wished to say about it. In November, I spent a sport day embedded with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders because the Cowboys performed the Texans—although day isn’t precisely proper. The squad labored for greater than 12 hours straight, pulling a shift that stretched from Monday morning to the early hours of Tuesday.
Certain, a few of that point was spent on buses to and from the Star, the Cowboys’ headquarters in Frisco, Texas, and a few was spent on hair and make-up. (The cheerleaders are accountable for their very own professional-level glam, which calls for a lot of powder and a lot of time wielding a Dyson.) However most of these hours have been spent dancing: “Thunderstruck,” their pre-kickoff routine, includes each a 50-yard dash in below eight seconds (in cowboy boots!) and chorus-line bounce splits. By the top of the evening, the entire crew was dripping in sweat and coated in blisters, their pantyhose ripped from their excessive kicks. Many required trainers for varied muscle illnesses or to assist wrap their ankles. There have been dozens of ice packs, foam rollers, and empty Gatorade bottles scattered throughout the locker-room ground.
However there could be no relaxation for the pom-pom weary: That they had observe the subsequent day and the day after that. That they had all of the soccer video games, the company exhibits, the press junkets, and the Cowboys Christmas Spectacular. That they had main appearances with Kacey Musgraves, on the Formulation 1 United States Grand Prix, and at Mike Tyson’s combat with Jake Paul in Las Vegas. Netflix digital camera crews have been in every single place, as was our crew from Vogue.
Everybody stood to revenue from their glamorous picture—everybody, that’s, apart from the cheerleaders themselves. Their pay was about $15 an hour and $500 for every look. Most needed to assist themselves with different jobs. They didn’t have medical health insurance.
As soon as upon a time, that made a form of sense. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader squad as we now understand it took place within the Seventies. It was marketed as a part-time gig: You had a couple of practices in the course of the week and carried out in the course of the Sunday video games. Half a century later—between Monday Night time Soccer, Thursday Night time Soccer, Professional Bowls, and numerous extra occasions—the DCC are working 30 to 40 hours every week for a lot of the 12 months and the Cowboys franchise is value $11 billion—three billion greater than every other crew within the Nationwide Soccer League. Their branding as “America’s crew”—full with an unabashed dedication to a stars-and-stripes, yeehaw aesthetic—has made their picture endlessly exportable and mineable. Go wherever on this planet, and folks know concerning the Dallas Cowboys—whether or not they’re successful or not. (In 2024, their file was 7-10.)
