There’s big money in Netflix‘s biggest hits… but not always for the stars!
The streaming giant’s second season of Cheer has been making waves the last few weeks with its portrayal of the cheer programs at Navarro College and their rival, Trinity Valley Community College, in rural Texas. But as it turns out, neither school saw a financial windfall even after the show became a smash hit!
Related: ‘Cheer’ Addressed Jerry Harris’ Sexual Abuse Allegations Head On — Here’s How
According to Sportico, the schools were each paid only $30,000 for their participation in the second season of the doc. And that price was grandfathered in with no ability to negotiate after being set in the initial location fee agreement between Navarro and the show’s production company four years ago!
Per Sportico, the terms of the contract were clear:
“In 2018, Navarro signed a deal with a production company in which the school agreed to be paid $30,000 for the rights to film a season of a then-untitled cheerleading documentary, according to a copy of the rights agreement obtained by Sportico.”
Furthermore, the pact has a built-in exclusive option for the production company to renew the series at the same $30,000 fee each year for five (!) additional years!
The college’s director of marketing, Stacie Sipes, explained the realities of the contract:
“Everybody thinks we made a million dollars off of the show, and as you can see from the contract, we did not.”
She says she and head coach Monica Aldama simply wanted Navarro to be presented well when they first signed up:
“We have had declining enrollment. I could probably name four or five students that we heard came here because they heard about our college [through Cheer]… As Monica and I have both said previously: we were hoping not to get fired. We just wanted to have a really good show produced about her program; we never really thought about having people flocking to our school.”
Really makes you feel some type of way when you think about how many hours the doc’s subjects spent doing interviews for the series, and how many resources the school must have devoted to making it all happen…
Just saying!
Obviously this isn’t the first time we’ve learned about a reality show production not doing right by its subjects. TLC infamously gave Jill and Jessa Duggar zero money for starring in Counting On… continuing instead to pay their father, Jim Bob Duggar even though his show 19 Kids And Counting was supposedly canceled.
What do YOU think, Perezcious TV fans? Should someone look into this en masse? Or is it just the reality of the situation??
[Image via Netflix/YouTube]
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