Miss USA pageant heading home to Las Vegas after two years in Baton Rouge
A year after the contest was engulfed in a Donald Trump-induced controversy, Miss USA officials announced Friday that the pageant will host its 2016 rendition in Las Vegas, Nevada, following a two-year reign in Baton Rouge.
In an announcement posted to its website, the pageant revealed that the 2016 Miss USA Competition will take place June 5 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas following its stint at the Baton Rouge River Center.
Paul Arrigo, president and CEO of Visit Baton Rouge, says city officials did not bid on the Miss USA pageant for this year. However, he says a lot of events and conferences are coming to Baton Rouge during that time period, including a large Jehovah’s Witness conference and a Smith and Wesson Collectors Association convention.
Arrigo added he would not know how losing the pageant will impact Baton Rouge economically until a comparison can be made between the week the pageant would have taken place this year and the week of pageant took place in previous years.
The Capital City first held the beauty pageant in 2014 to a sold-out crowd at the River Center, with everyone from city-parish and state officials to the contestants and even Trump himself praising Baton Rouge for its production of the pageant.
Local officials announced Miss USA’s return in 2015 amid much fanfare, but the celebration was marred shortly before the contestants hit the stage after Trump, a former pageant co-owner, made controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants during his presidential announcement in the weeks leading up to the pageant.
That led many sponsors, judges and entertainers slated for the show to back out, as well as Univision and NBC, which were set to broadcast the event internationally.
The pageant then moved its broadcast to the Reelz Network, which has a significantly weaker reach compared to NBC, and viewership dropped significantly from the 2014 pageant. The 2014 pageant drew in more than 5.6 million viewers on NBC, but less than 1 million people watched the 2015 show on the little-known Reelz Channel.
Some city-parish officials in turn questioned whether Baton Rouge got a full return on its investment, with some calling for incentive payments to be withheld.
The Visit Baton Rouge Board of Directors voted in September to withhold a final $75,000 payment to the pageant organization as per the agency’s contract. The Louisiana Office of Tourism also declined to pay more than half of the $50,000 it promised the pageant organization.
Trump sold the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants in September to WME/IMG.
—Ryan Broussard
https://www.businessreport.com/article/miss-usa-pageant-heading-home-las-vegas-two-years-baton-rouge
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