On Wednesday the New York Times broke the story of Washington’s NFL team taking cheerleaders on trip to Costa Rica in 2013 which crossed the line of acceptable behavior.
Washington’s NFL team removes ‘who’s hotter’ cheerleading feature from website following New York Times report
The move was done quietly just one day after a New York Times article was published.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
The report details the trip, which included the team taking the cheerleaders’ passports on arrival in the country and requiring them to pose topless in front of spectators. Some of the women were chosen by male sponsors to be personal escorts at a nightclub one night, which they say was tantamount to “pimping them out”. Amid the public outcry over the story, the team quietly removed a long-standing section of its website which invited visitors to rate the women’s appearances.
The “Cheer 365” section of the site was deleted on Thursday morning, after being a staple on the site since 2015. Branded as “First Ladies of Football,” the slug line for the section read “The Hottest Way To Pass Time All Year Long.”
It was a daily head-to-head voting site that asked people to select which cheerleader from team history was “hotter.” You can find an archived version of the site here — but photos have been removed entirely since the New York Times’ story went live.
Team officials have not responded to the report, or issued a statement on the removal of the Cheer 365 section of the team site.
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