Visit Baton Rouge will not fork over a final $75,000 payment to the Miss USA pageant, the tourism promotion agency’s board of directors voted today.
Prior to the pageant, which took place in Baton Rouge last month, Visit Baton Rouge had signed a contract with the Miss USA organization to provide $200,000 of the total $545,000 incentive package the pageant received from city-parish and state offices to bring the event back to Baton Rouge for a second straight year.
Paul Arrigo, president and CEO of Visit Baton Rouge, says the agency has already paid $100,000 to Miss USA and spent about $25,000 on behalf of Miss USA to promote the pageant. The debate about paying the pageant incentives came after pageant co-owner Donald Trump 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. 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.
Before voting on the resolution this afternoon, two Visit Baton Rouge board members asked about the possibility of being sued by Trump, similar to the lawsuit he has filed against Univision and has threatened to file against NBC for what Trump claims is a breach of contract. Chuck Elkins, legal counsel for the board, says they have not been threatened with a lawsuit and that it would be better to talk about any possible lawsuits in executive session as opposed to a public meeting.
“We’re not alone in this position,” Elkins said, citing the decision by the state Office of Tourism to forgo handing over half of the $50,000 it promised the organization. Baton Rouge has paid the pageant the $280,000 it pledged in incentives.
Also at today’s meeting, the board unanimously approved to use $71,300 from its BP oil spill settlement funds to continue operating a digital billboard in West Baton Rouge Parish promoting Baton Rouge high above the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10, just a few miles before the Mississippi River bridge.
The contract Visit Baton Rouge had with Lamar Advertising for the billboard was set to expire in February 2016, but the two negotiated a contract extension until the end of 2016 at a discounted rate.
Visit Baton Rouge also reported today that year-to-date occupancy tax collections from local hotel stays through June are off 3% compared to 2014. Collections, however, remain 7.5% above the amount the agency had budgeted to receive through June.
—Ryan Broussard
