Do NFL Cheerleaders Travel With the Team?
A mainstay on 25 of the 32 teams in the NFL, cheerleaders motivate, entertain, and cheer for the home team across the league. Originally started back in 1954 by the Baltimore Colts, cheerleading has evolved from simple routines and dances to more sophisticated ones and additional community outreach to help market the team and franchise.
And while cheerleaders are highly visible at an NFL game, they are also extremely active in the community and look to both giveback and provide a positive image of the team, the NFL franchise, and the league in general.
But, do NFL cheerleaders travel with the team to away games? With nearly half of all an NFL team’s games being played on the road, do their respective cheerleaders join them in an away city and help to motivate and cheer for them away from home?
Below, we are not only going to look at whether or not NFL cheerleaders travel with the team, but we will also discuss why some NFL teams opt to not have a cheerleading squad, how NFL cheerleaders can give back to their community, and what the future of cheerleading looks like in the NFL.
Where Do NFL Cheerleaders Cheer?
A cheerleading squad can be found on all NFL teams, save for seven. These seven are the Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, Los Angeles Chargers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And while the Green Bay Packers do not have an official cheering squad, they do utilize a collegiate squad to cheer for them at their home games.
However, for the 25 teams that do have a cheerleading squad, the cheerleaders will not attend away games to support their respective team. Rather, cheerleaders are expected to represent, cheer, and motivate their respective team only at their home stadium.
As such, cheerleaders do not travel with the team in an official capacity. That is not to say that an NFL cheerleader could not, of their own volition, choose to attend an away game for a team they support, but doing so will not be recognized in an official capacity by either the franchise team or the league.
Why Don’t NFL Cheerleaders Cheer at Away Games?
As an NFL teams squad of cheerleaders does not attend away games in an official capacity, it brings up an interesting question, why don’t NFL cheerleaders cheer at away games? The answer, however, is not as straightforward as one would assume.
Rather, there are two main reasons why NFL cheerleaders don’t cheer at away games.
The first, and perhaps most obvious one, is simple logistics. An NFL game is an entertainment event. And while the happenings on the field during the game are not staged, the performances and entertainment while the players are off the field during the half or a timeout are put in place to provide entertainment for the fans in the stadium.
As such, dividing the already precious few minutes between two different cheering squads would simply be too difficult and not worth the effort. Rather, as the home team is hosting the competition, their cheerleading squad is given the opportunity to entertain and motivate the crowd and home players.
Secondly, and as touched on above, the home team is the undisputed host of the game. As an away team is traveling to a matchup, the home team has an innate advantage in being able to control who speaks, performs, and entertains at their event.
Allowing for another teams cheerleaders to cheer at an away game would simply descend into a bevy of chaotic boos and yelling. That is, the fans in the home stadium, overwhelmingly, don’t want to cheer, root, or motivate for the opposing team in any manner.
And as cheerleaders are meant to help motivate the players on the field, that small advantage is reserved for the home team and is made inaccessible to the visiting team.
Do NFL Cheerleaders Affect the Outcome of the Game?
While it is difficult to quantify just whether or not an NFL teams cheerleading squad has a direct impact on the outcome of the game, it is a bit easier to quantify the affects on the motivation and energy the cheerleaders provide to the fans in the stadium.
That is, while an NFL player on the field may not pay much mind to the happenings by the cheering squad, they will hear the roars, yells, and spiritedness of the fans in the stands.
The cheers of the fans, typically bellowing throughout the entirety of the stadium, can help a home team to feel more motivated, confident, and assured in their own abilities and can help them to overcome their opponent.
In fact, looking at the data, from 2002 to 2018, home teams won at least 56 percent of the time during all but two seasons and in three seasons won at least 60 percent.1 And while there appears to be a slight decrease in an NFL teams home game advantages, the COVID-19 pandemic provides some real world data that can be used to better understand if home field advantage actually does exist in the NFL.
In that the pandemic disallowed fans from attending games, the idea of a home game advantage essentially disappeared for the length of the season. And during that season, road teams won 49.3% of games, their highest rate since at least 2001.
Before the pandemic? Road teams were averaging win rates just a hair shy below 43% at 42.9%.
And in that cheerleaders have a direct impact on the liveliness, spiritedness, and excitement of fans in the stadium, their influence is essential to helping an NFL team ensure that home field advantage.