The NFL has shut down its cheerleaders' lawsuit over their skimpy paychecks.
No one has denied that the women are paid somewhere between nothing and $125 a game, while players make millions a year. It's just that the cheerleaders fell flat in their attempts to argue that the NFL and 27 of its clubs had colluded to suppress their compensation. The cheerleaders were seeking up to $300 million in damages times three.
In an order signed Friday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco denied the cheerleaders motion for leave to amend their complaint and dismissed the case.
"This action comes in the wake of a string of wage-and-hour lawsuits against NFL clubs in recent years to benefit cheerleaders, but it is not itself a wage-and-hour suit. Instead, this action opens a new chapter in litigation concerning NFL cheerleaders based on 'more sinister' allegations of antitrust conspiracy between clubs," Alsup said by way of introduction.
The plaintiff, identified as former 49ers cheerleader Kelsey K. on behalf of herself and others similarly situated, "still fails to plead factual allegations supporting any plausible claim for relief," Alsup concluded.
The judge said the cheerleaders' arguments were contradictory and "nebulous" and the cheerleaders themselves were nonessential and contributed far less to the clubs' success than players and executives. Alsup pointed out more than once that five teams manage to play in the NFL with no cheerleaders at all.
"Taken as a whole, the proposed amendment fails to nudge its assertion that NFL clubs would compete for cheerleaders in the absence of a conspiracy from possible to plausible," Alsup wrote. "This shortfall is all the more starkly illuminated by the reply brief, which remarkably adds assertions fundamentally incompatible with plaintiff's own theories of liability."
For example, the judge said the cheerleaders argued that the NFL was able to "exploit" them because they "longed to perform in front of thousands of fans."
"This contradicts the notion that defendants have historically been able to 'exploit' cheerleaders, e.g., with low pay and poor working conditions, only by participating in some clandestine antitrust conspiracy," Alsup said.
The judge also seemed unimpressed with the argument that cheerleaders in the NFL have short-term careers in a revolving-door system where, "by the time cheerleaders realized they had been underpaid, they were ready to move on," and "there are certainly women waiting to step into the role."