Total Pro Sports
Forget quarterback controversies. The latest debate in football has nothing to do with playbooks or penalties. It’s about pom-poms. Yes, pom-poms. And one U.S. Senator says the NFL is pushing the game in the wrong direction.
Appearing on OutKick’s Hot Mic w/ Hutton & Withrow, Senator Tommy Tuberville, the former college football coach, went after the Minnesota Vikings for adding two male cheerleaders to their squad. The move has already stirred plenty of reactions online, with one Vikings cheerleader firing back at critics. Tuberville, though, called the NFL “woke” and accused the league of trying to “take the masculinity out” of the sport.
“I would like to ask the ownership of the NFL and the commissioner, what the hell are you doing?” Tuberville said. “If you’re going to be woke, and if you’re going to try to take the men out of men’s sports, then you’re going to have a huge problem.”
The Senator went a little deeper than the game. He aimed at Minnesota politics, gender debates, and even socialism before warning that male cheerleaders better not show up in Southern stadiums. “You can see Minnesota doing it, they’re one of the blue states, we’ve lost them, and it’s about 150 genders,” he said. “At the end of the day, I hope to God it doesn’t come South.”
Tuberville insisted this isn’t about just two men joining a cheer squad but about what he sees as a larger push to redefine the game.
🔥🚨BREAKING: The NFL Minnesota Vikings are under backlash after officially brining out their lead male cheerleader for the football game today. pic.twitter.com/EeNEJzAAEr
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) August 17, 2025
History doesn’t exactly back his argument. Male cheerleaders aren’t new to football. The Los Angeles Rams brought them in during 2018. The Baltimore Ravens followed. And on the college level, Tuberville’s own former team, the Auburn Tigers, has proudly featured male cheerleaders for years. Their official Instagram is filled with photos that make his current stance hard to square.
Still, Tuberville framed his concern around optics. He said the NFL risks alienating fans who see the shift as a step too far. Reports already suggest some Vikings season-ticket holders are canceling over the news, though how widespread the backlash will be is unclear.
As for whether the South will actually resist the trend, the numbers tell a different story. A growing list of NFL teams already features men on the sidelines, and that’s only expected to expand.
For now, Tuberville has drawn his line. Male cheerleaders won’t win or lose a football game, but they’ve already created a hype around them.
