Cowboys Recognize Cheerleaders’ Association as Bargaining Representative

The Dallas Cowboys have voluntarily accepted the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Association as the collective bargaining representative for the squad. The change establishes a formal relationship for bargaining, rather than simply recording a further pay adjustment. The announcement came from the team and the association on Friday. They said they reached the agreement after meaningful discussion.¹² The scale of this change is institutional: the association is now recognized to represent the squad in collective bargaining. The parties say that bargaining will start, so recognition precedes the negotiations themselves. The agreement gives the squad a formal part in discussions about working conditions. The available information does not identify specific terms that have already been negotiated.²³ The number of cheerleaders represented has not been announced, leaving the size of the bargaining group uncertain. The squad is reported to have 36 active members, but that figure does not establish how many are included in the union’s representation. The distinction matters because an active-member count and a confirmed bargaining-unit count are not the same information. The recognized relationship is clear even though its coverage has not been specified.¹⁴ In that sense, the announcement supplies a defined change but not a complete account of its scope. Recognition identifies the association’s representative role; it does not, by itself, say which working conditions will be addressed or what outcomes negotiations will produce. The team and association have committed to begin bargaining, while the membership figure and eventual terms remain unstated in the reported facts.¹²³⁴

The announcement follows a longer public focus on what cheerleaders are paid. That attention includes earlier changes in game-day compensation and a later reported increase for the 2025 season. These pay developments provide context for the recognition, but they are separate from the agreement to bargain. The new relationship concerns the squad’s formal role in negotiating working conditions, not a stated new wage amount.²⁵⁷⁸ In 2019, the Cowboys resolved a lawsuit brought by a former cheerleader. According to The Associated Press, game-day pay rose after that settlement from $200 to $400. The two figures describe a change in pay per game day, with the later amount twice the earlier amount. This is a reported historical pay change, not a figure given for the current bargaining agreement.⁶⁷ A participant in “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” reported that the squad’s pay rose by 400% for the 2025 season. Separately, some veteran cheerleaders were expected to make more than $75 an hour after the increase. The percentage and hourly figure refer to different ways of describing compensation, and neither specifies the dollar value of every cheerleader’s earnings. The facts do not identify those veterans or provide a general hourly rate for the squad.¹⁸ Those earlier figures show why pay has been part of the public context, but they should not be mistaken for terms agreed through collective bargaining. The reported game-day amount is tied to the 2019 settlement, while the 400% increase and hourly expectation concern the 2025 season. The recognition announcement supplies no new pay figure. Its stated effect is to establish a formal negotiating role for working conditions.¹²⁶⁷⁸

The association’s new status connects the current announcement with a squad that was established in 1961 and is reported to have 36 active members. Those facts offer historical and present-day context, but they do not reveal how the bargaining group will be defined. The team and association have not announced the number represented. As a result, the active roster figure cannot be treated as the confirmed size of the union’s constituency.³⁴ Reports describe the Cowboys move as believed to be the first union among NFL cheerleading squads. That description is qualified by the history of the Buffalo Jills, who unionized in the 1990s. The earlier example means a broad claim of first-ever cheerleader unionization would be too strong on the information available. The narrower account is that the Cowboys relationship is regarded as the first among NFL squads, while the Buffalo Jills provide an earlier unionization precedent.⁵⁶ The parties have described the agreement as the result of meaningful discussion and announced that collective bargaining will begin. No official statement in the supplied facts gives a timetable, lists negotiating demands, or reports an outcome from bargaining. What has been announced is recognition of the association and a formal role in negotiating working conditions. The next stage is therefore bargaining, whose terms are not yet given here.²³ Taken together, the development adds formal representation to a history that includes attention to compensation, a 2019 settlement, and reported pay changes. Those earlier events help explain the context without establishing that any one of them caused the recognition. The association’s representative status is announced, but the size of the represented group remains unspecified. The agreement’s practical reach will depend on bargaining details that have not been reported in these facts.¹²⁵⁶⁷⁸