ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Miss America is leaving Atlantic City for the second time, trading one casino town for another in a move that caps a whirlwind of change at the nearly century-old pageant.
This year’s pageant will be held at the Mohegan Sun Connecticut in Uncasville, Conn., the Miss America Organization said Tuesday.
It will be broadcast on NBC on Dec. 19, 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.
Ray Pineault, president and general manager of Mohegan Sun, noted the college scholarships the Miss America Organization gives to contestants.
“Miss America is a storied organization that has a long history of empowering women, providing tremendous educational resources to women and serving the overall public good,” he said.
The broadcast will be on a Thursday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern time, a departure from its longstanding fixture as a Sunday night event.
Announcements by the Miss America Organization and NBC mentioned only this year’s competition and did not address whether the pageant was making a multiyear commitment to Connecticut. Messages seeking clarification from pageant officials were not immediately returned.
The pageant began in Atlantic City in 1921 as a way to extend the summer tourism season beyond Labor Day weekend. It moved to Las Vegas in 2005, returning to Atlantic City in 2013.
It had been held at the historic Boardwalk Hall, and a parade in which contestants wore shoes with themes identified with their individual states had become part of the pageant’s history.
For decades, the pageant was a part of Americana, and longtime master of ceremonies Bert Parks crooning, “There she is … Miss America,” became synonymous with the pageant.
An email scandal in December 2017 led to the ouster of the pageant’s mostly male leadership, some of whom were revealed to have mocked contestants’ appearances, intellect and even sex lives.
