Super Bowl to be Without Cheerleaders for the First Time in History
Six NFL teams do not have cheerleaders. Two of those six are in the Super Bowl this year, which means the game will be cheerleaderless for the first time in its 45-year-history.
The Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders offered up their cheering services, but since they are not affiliated with the Green Bay Packers or the Pittsburgh Steelers, they weren't allowed to cheer.
The Cowboys' head cheerleader said:
“The NFL just won’t let us. They’ve covered up every star, every Dallas Cowboys logo, so we’ll be performing outside before the game.”
Both teams used to have cheerleaders. The packers had a squad known as the Packerettes, Goldern Girls or the Sideliners, who disbanded in 1988. Recently, they've brought in college cheerleaders to perform at home games, who were also brought in to perform at the Super Bowl appearances. This time, however, the college cheerleaders were not invited.
The Steelers also once had a cheerleading squad of their own known as the Steelerettes. They formed back in 1961, but were fired in 1969 by the old-fashioned Rooney family who felt that the "eye candy" took away from the game.
The other four NFL teams without cheerleaders include the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, Detroit Lions. All these cheerleader-lacking teams are up north where it's cold and probably impractical to don the half-naked outfits most NFL cheerleaders sport.
Comments
the last paragraph states the other four teams and it only lists three...
Bears are the other team.
"All these cheerleader-lacking teams are up north where it's cold and probably impractical to don the half-naked outfits most NFL cheerleaders sport." such a dumb statement...the nfl is nothing without cheerleaders. i live in Seattle and we got cheerleaders for the seahawks and its cold as hell out here.
Patriots and Bills have cheerleaders....huh?
Not necessary, not part of the sport. Looks dumb and gald my Giants do not subscribe to the foolishness of having cheerleaders. Can't here them anyways.....
The Browns, Bears, Packers, Steelers, Lions and NY Giants all don't have cheerleaders. The NFL is nothing without cheerleaders? So, you are going through puberty? Society doesn't need a bunch of half naked women prancing around ... like there aren't enough temptations out there already without them being shoved in our face on every magazine cover and TV channel and now, website ... It was nice to see the SuperBowl as just a ballgame, the way it should be, well, we could have done without the terrible half-time show. We should replace all the cheerleaders with real musicians and see how much better the entertainment department turns out.
What a refreshing break it was to watch a Superbowl without cheerleaders. They are a an odd thing, these days, cheerleaders. They are a relic of a time when women didn't play sports, so our only option for involvement was cheering on those big, strong, brave men! (How 1950's is that?! ::barf::) And yet, as it has become allowable for women to be publicly acknowledged as sexual creatures, cheerleaders have functioned as an opportunity for women to display themselves as sexual objects for masses of anonymous men, further solidifying the narrative that women are sex objects, and it's totally okay for men to view us that way.
So, from both perspectives, teams can't do away with them fast enough, as far as I'm concerned.
PS- To previous guest- seriously, you're concerned about the poor men who have to be "tempted" by looking at cheerleaders? Imagine what would happen if those cheerleaders decided to demand more modest outfits from their employers. They'd be fired and replaced faster than you can say "workers' rights." They are put on display BY certain men, FOR certain men, who presumably want to be "tempted." From your comment, you clearly do not belong to either of those groups of men, but frankly, you should realize that the fact that the men think anonymous women who they will never meet are actually something to be tempted by, as if all women ought to somehow be available to them, are a major part of the problem.