Buffalo Bills Cheerleaders Lawsuit Includes Troubling Details

Life as a Buffalo Bills cheerleader? Not as glamorous as it sounds. Far from it, actually. Let’s start here: They were not paid. And they had to put up with shit like this:

" The Jills were required to attend a golf tournament for sponsors. The high rollers paid cash — “Flips for Tips” — to watch bikini-clad cheerleaders do back flips. Afterward, the men placed bids on which women would ride around in their golf carts. A not-incidental detail: The carts had no extra seats. Women clung to the back or, much more to the point, were invited to sit in the men’s laps. "

So some of the Buffalo Bills cheerleaders – aka the “Jills” – are suing the team. They had to pay $50 to try out for the squad (the prestige!) and cough up $650 out-of-pocket for the outfits.

Oh, and this:

" The team dictated everything from the color of their hair to how they handled their menstrual cycle. "

You have to wonder if the New York Times – the only national outlet I’m aware of that wrote about this lawsuit – took glee in this story. Given the way the sports section covers the NFL – heavy on concussions and doom-and-gloom about the future of the sport; the interesting features they used to do can now be found in the Wall Street Journal – I actually laughed out loud at this line late in the story ” … come-to-Karl Marx moment for the N.F.L.” [via NY Times]