Business is booming in the NBA, better than it ever has before. The league recently signed a lucrative television deal, causing the salary cap to explode next season. As a result, non-elite players are receiving contracts worth more money than they’d ever see under the old cap, while elite players are getting – or preparing to get – contracts worth astronomical amounts. Given the immense health and growth of the league, one would think that the money would trickle down beyond players to all facets of an organization – not just basketball operations, but marketing, sales, even the dance team.
Tess Barker went undercover for Jezebel to find out if this was the case. She attended an open audition for the Los Angeles Clippers dance team (named Clippers Spirit), and what she reported was at once unsurprising and disappointing.
When the Clippers Spirit dance team was done being pure lightning, they slumped down on folding chairs and became human again. “You’ll have to have a second job. All these girls have second jobs. Or they’re in school. Or both,” Audrea told us.
The other girls nodded and raised their eyebrows, almost apologetically, before offering us time management tips. “You can skip your lunch. You can get to work early.”
“You just don’t sleep,” one said.
“A lot of bosses think it’s cool that you’re on Clippers Spirit,” another added.
“We don’t tell you how much you make until you make the finals,” Audrea offered quickly and quietly.
Whatever we did to supplement our mystery sub-standard wage, the girls made it clear that the Clippers were to come first. Rehearsals were mandatory. Games were mandatory, and we would have to arrive at Staples center two and a half hours prior to games for court rehearsals and a make-up pat-down and a meet-and-greet at on the floor.
Barker’s tale isn’t all that unfamiliar to those trying to make a living in any creative industry – she even equates the life of an NBA dancer to that of a struggling actor. The difference is that these dancers have the benefit of working not just in an industry, but for an actual organization, replete with funds. Shouldn’t they at least make more than minimum wage?
Audrea Harris, a petite African-American woman, stepped in front of us, and the music shut off. We stood. In head-to-toe Clippers gear, she moved with authority, but spoke with a nervous hesitance: “I just want you guys to have fun. This is supposed to be a fun day.” Later, in the Q&A section of the workshop, she would tell us, unexpectedly timid: “We do pay you. It’s not much. But we do pay you.”
One could try and make the argument that the dance team or the game-night squad isn’t the main attraction. Fans come to see players, not dancers. That argument, though, is shortsighted. No one is saying they should make Anthony Davis money. Yet, to essentially demand full-time dedication while not paying a full-time wage – as Barker notes, teams like the Orlando Magic state that being a dancer is a “part-time job that requires a full-time commitment” – or even a sufficient part-time wage is absurd and even insulting.
There is a prestige of sorts that comes with working for an NBA team at any level, whether you’re an intern or the general manager. But prestige pays approximately zero dollars, and being a dancer for an NBA team, in most cases, apparently pays barely more than that.
(Jezebel)
