So the Philadelphia Inquierer published some quite informative articles on the Miss America pageant. This may be in part because Atlantic City where it is held is within the paper's greater readership area.
What we learn from all of this, and from thinking about it, is that Miss America is in crisis. The removal of the old board and the introduction of a new leadership has caused a break. Many people feel they were basically told the competition had to either drop the swimsuit portion, or be dropped by ABC. It is now clear that was never the case, and they feel lied to.
However a bigger break seems to be a fight over the wording of the contracts. The new leadership, if I am reading what is going on correctly, seems to want to make Miss America an at will employee of the Miss America organization. Weather they would remove her without good cause is hard to say, but I can see people not wanting to make removal easier. There is also talk of giving her bonuses if she does her job well.
Such changes are a lot bigger than ending the swim suit competition and opening the processional to any outfit, not just evening gowns.
Also unclear is how the trickle down from the national organization works. Will all state competitions no longer be allowed swim suit competitions and evening gowns as of next year.
Related to this there has been some argument over the amount of scholarship money given out by Miss America. It used to claim $45 million, but only around $2 million is actually traced. One issue often overlooked is scholarship awards are a funky thing.
Miss America compensated winners in furs and movie contracts in the 1930s. In 1944 it began giving out college scholarships. However contestants must be between age 18 and 26. Maybe it is time to reconsider the top age and move to 30. Either way, not all 26-year-olds will be going to college within the allowed time for the scholarship money. Others will have bills below what they win. This might not be a direct likelihood for those people the top prize, but many of these contestants will have other scholarship sources. So like most scholarships that awarded and that paid out is not the same.
However Miss America has another problem. It is actually the main motivation behind dropping the swim suit competition, although I am not sure that change will fix the other problem. In the 1980s annual competitors within the system could number 85,000. This year, only 4,000 women entered into the competition at its sub-state level feeder competitions.
Why this is I cant say for sure. Marriage rates for women in this age bracket have dropped. Have any competitors with out-of-wedlock children ever participated? Even if they are not formally barred, post-pregnant bodies are a hard fight against those that were never such in many cases.
There are many other issues. There are lots more options for women in sports, other scholarship options have also multiplied. Social stigma against pageants has increased. At the same time all youth organizations have struggled. Boy Scouts a little less since the LDS-Church propped it up, but the break between the LDS Church an Boy Scouts may have been because the system called for a level of social capital not workable any more. It also was mainly just the LDS Church and BSA and Boy Scouts Canada, and only on the boys not the girls side. All this made the attempt of leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints such as Russell M. Nelson to create a unifying worldwide program only workable if scouts was left behind.
There is another possible issue. This is competition inflation. Basically over time people run up the stakes of competitions by trying harder and harder to win. This increases the direct financial costs of winning and more often the opportunity cost, the amount of time diverted to winning as opposed to other things.
Closely related to this is the likelihood that the number of local level competitions has fallen. Whenever such a competition folds, it probably decreases the likelihood people will participate.
Right now Miss America is facing the effects of years of fewer competitors and apparently a loss of sponsors. The new contracts seem to say your scholarship money is unsure, and you will be more at will. I can see why people are reluctant to sign such especially with a lack of transparency at the top. Rewriting the contracts the same year the competition itself was so fully reformatted was a very bad idea.
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