Miss USA contestants sold vacation packages and asked fans to buy votes. It's the CEO's latest effort to stay relevant.

The 2,400-seat Miami theater lit up like a Coldplay concert when the QR code dropped at the Miss USA pageant. A sea of phones — held up by supportive parents, partners, and past pageant queens — trained their cameras on the massive barcode being projected from center stage, ready to vote for their favored contestant.

Fingers tapped rapidly as the audience used their free vote or purchased more in bundles — $50 for 50, $250 for 250, $500 for 500 — alongside viewers at home. The top 20 contestants' headshots shifted around the leaderboard as the votes tallied live on the pageant's website, revealing exactly how far each woman was from the top spot.

Two minutes left on the clock, a banner flashed across: Now, votes counted double. As the seconds ticked closer to zero, the votes burst in like a flash flood. The gap between first and second place was 1,794 votes at the 36-second mark. When the clock struck zero, it was more than 14,000.

Fans have never had more of a say at Miss USA — especially if they're willing to pay. At last month's pageant, paid voting helped determine three top 20 spots, while a fourth went to the contestant who sold the most Westgate Resorts vacation packages, an unprecedented incentive that tied a contestant's placement to sales for a pageant sponsor. The winner was determined by a panel of six judges, including a mix of Miss USA and Miss Universe winners, but fans also had the opportunity to vote for the top 10 as the "seventh judge."

Nearly a dozen of this year's Miss USA contestants spoke to Business Insider about the changes. Some believe it's a savvy strategy by CEO Thom Brodeur, who took over the pageant in September 2025, to keep the business afloat and increase fan engagement, especially at a time when pageants struggle to remain relevant. Others worry the competition is turning into what one called a "pay-to-play" model, making it less accessible to women who don't have money or big social media followings.

"There's a lot of fatigue," Miss Arizona Kaitlyn Humphrey told Business Insider. "It's an expensive sport already, and it breaks my heart that a lot of people can't compete purely because there's such a barrier to entry in the financial aspect of things. And then we're just adding layers to that."

Nearly 40 million people tuned in to watch Miss USA in the 1960s and '70s, but viewership dwindled over its 60 years on television. In 2023, the Miss USA final peaked at 1.1 million viewers on The CW. It was a far cry from its heyday, but still enough for a multiyear deal. The network ultimately dropped the pageant in 2025 amid fallout from former CEO Laylah Rose's tenure, during which Miss USA 2023 Noelia Voigt and Miss Teen USA 2023 UmaSofia Srivastava relinquished their crowns due to her leadership.

This year, the competition was set to return to The CW, but, as Business Insider first reported, the network dropped the show on August 20, a week before the final. Miss USA cited a "contractual issue with our production arrangements" and moved it to Queen Beauty Network, a streaming service focused on the pageant industry, where Brodeur is listed as vice president and chief marketing officer.

When the crown was placed on Justus Kelley's head on August 27, making her the first married woman and mother to win the title, a live viewer counter on the Queen Beauty Network showed around 4,000 people watching.

Shrinking viewership hasn't only affected Miss USA's ratings — it's put a serious dent in the pageant's coffers. Paula Shugart, who oversaw Miss USA from 2001 to 2020 as president of the Miss Universe Organization, told Business Insider that the pageant once received $3 to $5 million in licensing fees from the networks. Those days are gone.

"Network television has completely changed," Shugart said. "You don't have the viewership, and you're not going to get the license fees that you used to get. You have to figure out different ways to pay for it and defray the costs."

"The days of 'free lunch' for pageants and pageant fans are over," he told Business Insider last week. "They've been over for some time. Introducing new revenue streams — whether that's through fan voting, contests, or other unique opportunities we're exploring — are the way this industry lives to see its next 75 years."