Miss America in crisis mode after Atlantic City drops venue

By Ruth Brown December 18, 2018 | 3:55pm | Updated

The iconic beauty pageant is seeking a new host city after New Jersey officials said the state will no longer bankroll the troubled event in its longtime home of Atlantic City, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“The Miss America Organization is interviewing cities to partner with Miss America 2.0 as it prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary,” reads a Request for Proposal for the 2020 and 2021 Miss America competition obtained by the newspaper.

“This event can bring exposure and economic activity to your city!”

The New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority has coughed up $12 million to stage the pageant for the past three years alone, but told the Inquirer it hadn’t responded to the RFP.

“What’s the return?” CRDA executive director Matt Doherty told the paper. “Therein lies the challenge.”

The organization says future host cities will have to cough up between $2.5 million and $4.9 million to stage the pageant, plus another $325,000 for other expenses, according to the paper.

They will also need to put Miss America chairwoman Gretchen Carlson up in a presidential suite.

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Leaving Atlantic City would be just the latest blow to the contest, which is facing plummeting ratings and still smarting from the 2017 leak of shocking emails showing Miss America executives and employees making demeaning comments about former winners.

Much of the organization’s leadership resigned over the scandal and Carlson seized the reins — only to be hit with her own allegations of bullying.

Carlson this year controversially attempted to modernize the event by scrapping the swimsuit contest, but the ratings continued to slump.

Miss America has left the Jersey resort hub before — it was held in Las Vegas from 2006 to 2013 — but former winners say they’d prefer to see it stay put.

“I just think it’s an Atlantic City tradition,” Suzette Charles, a former Miss America and Miss New Jersey, told the Inquirer. “Unfortunately, the way it’s been run hasn’t been terrific in the last 97-plus years, some years better than others.”

https://nypost.com/2018/12/18/miss-america-in-crisis-mode-after-atlantic-city-drops-venue/