AS the National Football League starts a new season, millions of Americans will settle in for the next five months to enjoy the thrill of pro football. Forty-five percent of those fans are female, and the league has spent millions of dollars in recent years trying to increase its appeal among women.

And yet, one high-profile group of women in the multibillion-dollar N.F.L. is still waiting for fair treatment. Cheerleaders are often paid well below minimum wage and aren’t given the most basic protections that every employee deserves.

The issue is gaining traction. In just the last two years, professional cheerleaders for the Oakland Raiders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals have filed wage theft lawsuits against their respective teams, alleging labor violations including misclassification, meaning that some cheerleaders were treated as independent contractors, not as employees, and therefore didn’t receive the wages or benefits they deserved. (So far, the Raiders and Buccaneers have settled lawsuits by agreeing to pay more than $2 million in back wages.)

These recent complaints reveal a pattern of abuse, including failure to pay in a timely manner or at all, failure to reimburse for mandatory expenses or to adhere to basic requirements under state labor laws, and unlawful deductions from earnings, including penalties for minor infractions such as forgetting pompoms.