Netflix Hit 'Cheer' Continues To Receive Applause, But Payout For Schools Fairly Quiet

Season 2 of Cheer is here, and the Netflix series about competitive cheer powerhouses Navarro College and Trinity Valley Community College is proving to be just as captivating as the first time around.

That's not just our opinion either. The first season, released in January 2020, featured six episodes and became one of Netflix's most-watched original programs. It also picked up Emmys for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program, Outstanding Directing for a Reality Program, and Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program.

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The reason for the show's popularity is that it's about more than cheerleading. It's about the people involved.

As relayed by Daniel Libit of Sportico, Cheer has become renowned for delivering "both incredible spectacle and horrifying scandal. Along the way, the show has catapulted several of its subjects into social media stardom, including Navarro’s head cheer coach, Monica Aldama, who now has more than 700,000 Instagram followers and recently published a bestselling book."

But for the Dallas-area schools themselves, the profits haven't been quite as noticeable, as Libit reported.

"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," he wrote.

TVCC reportedly received the same payout.

But art is never really supposed to be about money, or so they say. So while the schools aren't raking in much, the people involved in the series are getting to experience their 15 minutes of fame. And as is so often the case in reality shows such as this, one or two are likely to cash in eventually.

When that happens, well, it's usually something to cheer about.