How much does Charlotte Jones make? Dallas Cowboys’ chief brand officer and executive VP’s salary

In Netflix’s documentary series, “America’s Sweethearts” about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, director Greg Whitely showed us a side of the DCC that we’d never seen before. Documenting the lives of the women from the time they try out for the team in May all the way through to the end of the season the following January, the series exposes the not-so-pretty parts of the coveted cheer squad.

“On any given day, there is a cheerleader that is going through something: They’re planning a wedding and they’re stressed out about it, or another girl is about to lose her job and she’s kind of freaking out about it,” Whitely told Variety. “All of them have to sort of set aside their troubles and try and put on this game face to go perform.”

From giving a flawless performance to meeting near impossible beauty standards and maintaining a certain body type to pushing down all negative emotions and smiling through pain, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders are expected to be the image of perfection. They do all of this while putting up with criticism, facing over-eager fans and even stalkers, dealing with body-image issues, and all for astonishingly low pay.

Who is Charlotte Jones?

In the series, we’re introduced to some of the leaders of the DCC, and that includes Charlotte Jones, daughter of billionaire Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Charlotte is the chief brand officer and executive vice president of the Dallas Cowboys. Her main responsibility is to monitor the team’s brand and make sure it is well-represented. As part of that, she is also responsible for helping DCC director Kelli Finglass decide on the final 36 cheerleaders.

In the very first episode, Jones talks about how hiring Finglass as the DCC director was “one of the greatest decisions I ever made” because she helped take the Cowboys out of “financial disarray”, mainly by making the cheerleaders a profit house. She talks about how Finglass came up with the ideas for the annual swimsuit calendar, the special edition DCC Barbie doll, and the 16-season CMT show about the cheerleaders called “Making the Team”.

Charlotte Jones facing criticism for comments on DCC pay

For all the effort and work that the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders put in and all the money the DCC brand brings to the franchise, their pay is appallingly low. They earn around $400 a game and around $12 an hour (and that’s only after a lawsuit bumped it up from $200 a game) and most of them work full time or part time jobs to be able to make ends meet. One of the former cheerleaders who appears on the Netflix series equates their pay to that of a full-time Chick-fil-A employee.

Charlotte Jones’ take on this is that being part of the DCC is “bigger than that”, a comment that has earned her heavy criticism. Here’s what she said on the show:

“There’s a lot of cynicism around pay for NFL cheerleaders, as it should be. They’re not paid a lot,” said Jones. “But the facts are, they don’t come here for the money. They come here for something that’s actually bigger than that to them. They have a passion for dance. There are not a lot of opportunities in the field of dance to get to perform at an elite level. It is about being a part of something bigger than themselves.”

Being a part of the DCC is like an elite symbol, but it still doesn’t mean they don’t deserve fair pay for the work they put in and the risks they take, not to mention the toll the job takes on their mental and emotional health. One anonymous former DCC member spoke to the Daily Mail and told them that Jones’ comments were “insulting” and that the cheerleaders are exploited.

She told them she made between $15,000 and $22,000 a year. For comparison, the Cowboys mascot makes $65,000 a year and the lowest-paid player makes $795,000.

Charlotte Jones’ salary and net worth

Charlotte Jones is one of the most influential female executives in all professional sports. In addition to overseeing the Cowboys’ brand marketing, she also helps with fan engagement, entertainment, and community relations. She’s worked in the Cowboys’ executive office since 1989 when her father became the owner. In 2010, she became the first woman to become Chairman of the Salvation Army’s National Advisory Board. In 2012, she became Chairman of the NFL Foundation and in 2014, she was appointed to the NFL Conduct Committee. She does work for many charity organizations and for the NFL Health and Safety Committee and NFL Legalized Sports Betting Committee.

As such, Charlotte Jones makes around $1.5 million a year and has a net worth of $100 million dollars.

Of course, someone of Jones’ stature is expected to make more than a dancer, but it was the somewhat condescending comments she made about the cheerleaders’ pay and their willingness to sort of be exploited that had many people in a rage. However, Whitely actually came to the Cowboys’ defense regarding the pay subject.

“In defense of the Cowboys organization, they pay commensurate with how dancers are typically paid in the industry,” he said. “I did not realize that dancers were just not paid, given their level of talent and even their level of exposure. It’s probably part and parcel to the number of people who want to do it versus the number of jobs that there are. So the marketplace, as a result, is not rewarding them in the way that I think they deserve to be rewarded.”