5 years ago, a rash of lawsuits came out involving cheerleaders suing NFL Teams for wage theft, illegal employment practices and discrimination. In almost every case, the suits were settled without any work stoppages but that wasn't the case in regards to the Buffalo Jills. Why things were different for them was due mostly to the fact that they weren't run by the NFL team they represented. The other lawsuits had one defendant...the teams the cheerleaders represented. The Raiderettes sued the Raiders, the Flight Crew sued the Jets, and so on. Most casual observers don't realize that the Jills had been contracted out since the 80s...Mighty Taco, Salvatore's, a travel agency, Citadel Radio, and finally Stejon Productions, a company formed in 2012 expressly to run the Jills. The Jills lawsuit has 4 defendants named...the Bills because they are the team the Jills have represented, the NFL because Commissioner Roger Goodell's signature is on the contracts that each Jills signed when joining the squad, Citadel Radio, which ran the squad from 2000-2011, and Stejon Productions, which took control of the Jills in 2012 when the Bills radio rights switched from Cumulus Media (which had taken over Citadel in 2011) to Entercom Communications.
Something else that doesn't seem to be widely known is that the Bills did not shut down the Jills. What happened is that when the allegations of mistreatment came to light when the lawsuit went public, the Bills took back an offer of $30,000 to help ensure the Jills would finally get paid for their services on gamedays. Other sponsors followed suit and when no one else could be found quickly to take their places, Stejon Productions shut down Jills operations.
Sometime later, filmmaker Yu Gu started work on a documentary on the lawsuits and the underlying issues that brought them about. Her work finally came to fruition recently when the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. I've yet to see the film myself so I can't write a review but I can share a few links about the film, including a review and a podcast about the film.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-nfl-cheerleaders-speak-out-against-sexism-and-abuse-we-deserve-to-be-respected
https://variety.com/2019/film/festivals/a-womans-work-the-nfls-cheerleader-problem-review-1203202499/#respond
http://www.projectionboothpodcast.com/2019/04/special-report.html?&m=1Personally, I've tried to stay neutral on the lawsuit as I know former Jills on all sides of the issue...the ladies who were part of the original 5-Jill lawsuit, some of the 74 who joined in the class action suit, some who support the goals of the suit but not the suit itself and some who are opposed to all of it. Unfortunately there's been a lot of vitriol sent towards the girls who sued because things were different for them than for the girls who sued.
I do have 2 things that need to be said, however.
1 is that no one wanted to shut down the Jills, not the girls who sued and not the person who made the decision to do so.
The other is that no 2 girls deal with identical situation to. Rules changed from year to year and no 2 girls were treated exactly alike...that part is human nature. I know that I my 7 years working closely with the squad, I treated everyone fairly but I'd be lying if I treated everyone exactly the same. I knew some better than I knew others whether it be because they were around longer or they treated me differently than others did.
As to the future of the Jills and how quickly they can finally return, it's hard to say. The lawsuits will have to be settled and then there's the issue of Stejon Productions. After the rash of lawsuits, the San Francisco 49ers, who had also contracted out their cheerleaders, the Gold Rush, did away with that arrangement. Even though they had no issues, they didn't want to risk an outside company abusing their cheerleaders the way Stejon was accused of doing to the Jills. Once the suits are settled, the question about running the squad will remain. The Pegulas would be insane to contract them out again but are their issues in the contract with Stejon that would make it tough to run the squad themselves?
