Dance teacher: Chiefs Cheer tryout ‘more difficult’ than Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs Cheer auditions demand fitness tests, public speaking and team trivia.
- Judging criteria include choreography skill, football knowledge and poise.
- Auditions span multiple rounds, with five interviews and complex technical routines.
An Alabama dance instructor who didn’t make the cut when she tried out for the Chiefs cheer team last year says the tryout was “definitely a lot more intense” than for some other NFL teams, including the Dallas Cowboys.
She dissected the Kansas City tryouts in a TikTok video posted last year that has resurfaced before the start of a new NFL season this week.
Jodi Kovar, a dance and cheer teacher with nearly 17,000 TikTok followers, has auditioned for other NFL cheer teams, including the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and the Miami Dolphins squad.
In the October 2024 TikTok video, she answered a question from a commenter who wrote that her daughter had auditioned for Chiefs Cheer for the past three seasons. “I know you auditioned this year and made (it) to semis. How do you feel about their process?” the commenter asked.
Kovar said in the video that she didn’t make it to finals last year, so she can’t “speak to exactly what goes on in the finals. But from my research I’m pretty sure it includes a fitness test, a runway walk, multiple dance performances and a public speaking portion just spread out over multiple days.”
She said in the preliminary round and semifinals she had to “submit four different videos and attend five different interviews. Two of the videos I had to submit were Chiefs choreography.
“One of them was like a halftime performance and one of them was a sideline. And then the other dance video was solo. Last video was like a public speaking video.
“The interview portion, they asked a little bit about ourselves, but the majority of it was quizzing us on certain players and coaches and important people and events within the organization.”
She called the choreography “way more technical than any other team I personally auditioned for. Choreo had a ton of different leaps and turns and it even had like jazz and hip hop within the choreo.
“For all of the other teams I auditioned for, the only technical element that they had in their prelims was maybe a double turn. I also don’t know of any other NFL teams that does like five different interview rounds.”
Kovar auditioned in 2024 in what Tavia Hunt, wife of Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt, called “the most competitive auditions in Chiefs Cheer history.”
“Finals were amazing and this squad will be elite,” Hunt wrote on Instagram.
The auditions came after the Chiefs won their second consecutive Super Bowl championship. One of the perks of being a Chiefs cheerleader? They get their own Super Bowl rings.
Two years ago, a woman from Minneapolis, Kansas, who, like Kovar, unsuccessfully auditioned for the squad, shared details of the process.
Preliminary and semifinal auditions are held virtually, then finalists are required to be at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for three days of tryouts. Kovar told People in an interview published last week that in the second virtual round she did interviews with five different judges.
The Kansas candidate explained how applicants are judged on their communication skills and general knowledge of football — including Chiefs history — as well as athletic ability and fitness. The fitness test is one minute of pushups, one minute of sit-ups and a five-minute plank pose, she said.
They do mock interviews, give mock speeches, participate in photoshoots and learn choreography. They perform solo and with the group.
Candidates must be 18. Not surprisingly, finalists have often cheered or been members of dance teams in college.
Kovar admitted to getting tripped up in the Chiefs trivia quiz. “I definitely didn’t have a lot of the knowledge that was necessary. Like some things were just so specific I would’ve never guessed they would’ve asked,” she told People.
She was asked for the names of Chiefs special teams coaches and who she would draft to the Chiefs — and why.
All NFL cheerleaders must know more than the choreography.
“They said that there are just diehard fans and they’ll actually come up to the cheerleaders and like quiz them and be like, ‘Who was the Hall of Famer from this year?’” Kovar told People.
“And so they’ve basically said, ‘You need to be on point with all of your knowledge because these fans. They’re so diehard. You need to be as diehard as they are if you’re gonna represent this team.’”
She also told People the dance style in Kansas City is different from other teams she’s auditioned for.
“It’s a lot more energetic and bouncy. It’s a lot more technical. Like we have leaps and turns and kicks where a lot of teams don’t have as much technique in their auditions,” she told People.
Kovar also called the Chiefs’ audition “more difficult” than the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ audition. She was cut after the first round of auditions in Dallas.
“The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders auditions are more competitive because more people audition for them, but the Chiefs was more difficult,” she told People..
“Maybe they’ve just elevated their team because they’re Super Bowl winners and all,” Kovar told People of Chiefs Cheer.
“But they are just like some of the best of the best. So I think that’s why they just want their standards like super high.”
She told People she didn’t try out for Chiefs Cheer this year but plans to again.
This story was originally published September 3, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
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