Dallas Cowboy cheerleader reveals how much she can potentially earn through salary and side-hustle
NFL cheerleading can earn you a pretty penny these days, but thanks to the fame that this line of work brings, side hustles are even more lucrative.
Case in point: Jada McLean, who retired as a Dallas Cowboys performer at the end of the 2024 season. Now one of the stars of Netflix docuseries America's Sweethearts, she's killing it as a product promoter.
"The girls are now becoming influencers, which I have fought in the past," commented cheerleader choreographer Judy Trammell in an episode from season 3. "But they're becoming so successful with it, they're not having to kill themselves with a 9-to-5 job."
As for what exactly McLean is upto in the wake of hanging up her pompoms, the income is just streaming in while she's glued to social media.
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"Life's been good [since leaving the NFL]. I cannot complain," she said. "Now I'm just doing social media full-time, mainly brand deals."
Asked directly how much cash lands in her pocket from these ambassadorial relationships with the likes of Caraway, Bumble, Dove and Maybelline, the amount is potentially eye-watering.
"It all varies," McLean pointed out. "But it can go anywhere from, like, $5,000 (£3,788) for me right now to, like, $50,000 (£37,893)."
Per the Dallas Morning News, NFL cheerleader pay recently rose to as much as $400 per game, plus hourly wages for preparation time and off-field appearances.
Over on social media platform X, one fan of the Netflix doc was left extremely impressed by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders' dexterity.
They wrote: "The way they make it look effortless when it's actually a full-time job plus a second personality is wild. You watch one documentary and suddenly you got respect you didn't have before."
Elsewhere in the world of the NFL, Minnesota Vikings and Houston Texans player Matt Kalil recently lost a court case against his ex-wife Haley after the judge sided with her.
In November 2025, during a Twitch livestream with Marlon Garcia, Haley suggested that Matt's penis was so big that it made sex difficult and contributed to their divorce.
Responding to her privacy breach, her ex launched $75k (£56.8k) lawsuit, claiming she made degrading and deeply personal comments resulting in 'unwanted and invasive commentary from the public'.
US district judge Patrick Schiltz ultimately granted Haley's request that the case be dropped, per The Star Tribune.
Schiltz concluded that her comments had been permissible, adding: "If the only source of Matt's celebrity was his career as a football player — and if Haley was just a random social‐media maven who passed on gossip about the size of Matt's penis to get a laugh or to attract attention — then the Court would readily find that Haley's comments were not of legitimate public concern.
"For these reasons, the Court finds that Haley's remarks about the size of Matt's penis and its impact on her health and marriage were remarks about a matter of legitimate public concern."
Afterwards, Haley told TMZ of her relief: "I never wanted to be in a courtroom discussing matters of my own life. I think this ruling is important and I hope it encourages women everywhere to speak openly about what they've been through. Your story belongs to you and you shouldn't fear sharing it."
Dan Seddon