Mohegan Sun to host Miss America
Famed pageant moving from Atlantic City
Miss America is trading its usual home in the casino-rich Atlantic City, N.J., for a new casino home in Connecticut this December, officials announced Tuesday afternoon.
Leaders of the famed pageant are betting the move to Mohegan Sun in Uncasville will help reinvigorate the nearly century-old competition as it continues to pivot away from some of its beauty pageant roots for more progressive, empowering views of women.
The nationally televised Miss America 2020 pageant will be held Dec. 19 at Mohegan Sun and broadcast live on NBC that night, in a switch from recent broadcaster ABC.
“The Miss America Organization is proud to partner with Mohegan Sun as we return to our longtime NBC home,” said Regina Hopper, president and CEO of the Miss America Organization. “We are looking forward to a fresh take on this historic competition that will showcase the incredible women vying for the job of Miss America 2020.”
The pageant began in Atlantic City in 1921 as a way to extend the summer tourism season beyond Labor Day weekend and became synonymous with the seaside resort over the decades. The competition moved to Las Vegas in 2005 but returned to Atlantic City in 2013.
Now Miss America will move to Mohegan Sun as the competition continues to “evolve” from its past as a beauty pageant into a more progressive competition designed to empower young women, the organization said.
“Miss America has evolved in society as women in society have evolved,” the organization posted on its website. “This past year, candidates were no longer judged on outward appearance. That meant the elimination of the swimsuit competition and a choice for each candidate in the Evening Wear category to showcase wardrobe that expressed their own individual style.”
The competition now involves more in-depth contestant interviews in which the women advocate for social initiatives and tackle tough subjects to compete for educational and community service scholarships, as opposed to being scored on their looks. The Miss America Organization and its state competitions have awarded almost $6 million in scholarships over the past two years, the group said.
The organization and Mohegan Sun were first connected months ago by the casino’s convention sales team, and the technical capabilities at Mohegan Sun Arena immediately piqued Miss America leadership’s interest, said Ray Pineault, president and general manager of Mohegan Sun.
Whereas aspects of the competition have been spread across several casinos in New Jersey, Mohegan Sun can handle it all on its campus and support the live television broadcast, Pineault said.
Hosting Miss America at the home of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun also helps underscore the competition’s commitment to empowering and inspiring women, Pineault added.
“What excites me most about this is that they’re talking about this is a competition about empowering women,” Pineault said. “They’re one of the largest providers of educational resources to women. That’s an important message. … This is an opportunity to really highlight women and women’s opportunities to be strong leaders in our community, and I think that’s reflected in how the Mohegan Tribe sees itself and how we see ourselves as an organization.”
Miss America and Mohegan Sun plan to launch a series of cross-promotional events and messages among the organization, casino and basketball team, but Pineault said many of those details are still in the works. The teams also must spend months planning all of the technical aspects of how to host the show and will announce updated information about tickets and the competition over the next few months, he said.
Miss America’s latest departure from Atlantic City had been expected since the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority declined to renew subsidies for the pageant following last September’s competition.
Over the past six years, the agency spent more than $20 million on subsidies for the pageant.
The move to Connecticut is strictly between Miss America and Mohegan Sun, however, and the state’s economic development arm was not involved in the plan and is not offering incentives for the event to move here, Pineault said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.