The Latest Cheerleader to Sue a Football Team Says She Made $2 an Hour

When Manouchcar Pierre-Val joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleading squad in the spring of 2012, she was working full time as a registered nurse. Shaking pom-poms on Sundays for thousands of fans at National Football League games was a way to “let go and have a great time,” she says on a video posted to the Buccaneers website, which splices images of Pierre-Val caring for diabetic patients and posing in a bikini for a beach photo shoot.

Now the former Bucs dancer is suing the team, alleging that she was paid less than the minimum wage. In a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Florida this week, Pierre-Val says that the team paid $100 for every game she worked. She had to spend up to 15 hours a week at unpaid mandatory practices and dozens of hours at corporate and charity events for which she received little or no pay, according to the complaint. In all, Pierre-Val was paid less than $2 an hour, her lawyer told the Tampa Bay Times.