Cheers!

Don’t even bother turning on the Super Bowl this year. The people who make football worth watching won’t be at Cowboys Stadium next Sunday.

No, Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger aren’t injured. Clay Matthews and Troy Polamalu, in all their long-haired splendor, will be in uniform.

The Black Eyed Peas haven’t pulled out of the halftime show, and as far as I know, Christina Aguilera is still going to sing the national anthem before the game.

Brace yourselves, fans, because this is a tough one to swallow. There will be no cheerleaders shouting like idiots or dancing around like strippers at Super Bowl XLV.

If you were looking for another reason to like this old-school matchup between the Packers and Steelers, look no further. Neither team employs cheerleaders, so neither will bring a squad of bouncing nitwits to the game.

The Bears, Lions, Browns and Giants are the only other teams that don’t have cheerleaders. So even if the Bears hadn’t choked in the NFC championship game, we’d still have a cheerleader-free Super Bowl.

Cheerleaders really bring nothing to sporting events, but they become increasingly extraneous the higher the level of play of the athletes on the field or court. It gives high school girls an extracurricular activity. One could argue that, like marching bands, they’re part of what makes college sports so innocent and fun.

At the pro level, they’re completely useless, especially in the NFL. Other than the obligatory cheerleader-smiling-at-the-camera shot when Fox comes back from commercial, when have you ever noticed them at a pro football game? Thankfully, you can’t hear them, whether you’re in the stands or on your couch. And it’s not like the network is going to leave $2.5 million (the cost of a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl) on the table to show cheerleaders doing some routine during a timeout or between quarters.

So what is their purpose? They have none.

To be fair, there are cheerleaders at Packers home games, but they’re volunteers from nearby St. Norbert College and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. And honestly, I’d consider doing it if it meant I got to watch games from the sideline.

But their services are no longer needed, and they won’t be in Texas. And that’s something to cheer about.