April 12, 2011--Non-Snooki Nights

I assume that if you are reading this you have no idea what or who Snooki is. So before proceeding, allow me to fill in that cultural void.

She is one of the stars of the hit reality TV show, Jersey Shore. The most buxom of many who looks to be a little more than four-feet tall. (In the spirit of fact-checking, she is 4 ft 9 in.)

The New York Times identified her as "the breakout member of the cast." According to the paper of record, Snooki's gross behavior on the show--in the hot tub, getting punched in the face--has resulted in her becoming, to some, a target of public derision yet with a "strange appeal." One reported measure of this appeal was that a latex version of Snooki was among 2010's most popular Halloween costumes.

I began to think more about her recently when I learned that she was invited to "lecture" about clubbing and drinking by Rutgers University for a fee of $32,000. I was just recovering from this sticker-shock news when I heard that the same university would be paying Toni Morrison $30,000 to be their graduation speaker.

In my day as a university administrator, we never paid commencement speakers anything. We gave them an honorary degree and a dinner and that seemed to be enough. But now everyone is in show business and if they can get away with it they demand big bucks.

So OK, I thought, Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize winner . . . but $32,000 for Snooki?

Then I read the linked piece from the Times about Snooki's commercial value. Though she makes "only" $30,000 an episode for Jersey Shore (last year she and the other "cast" members received about $5,000 per), the producers, when resisting demands for more compensation, said Snooki and the others are expected to make additional money because the show, in effect, pays them with heightened recognition and fame, both of which are marketable.

For example, if an LA or Las Vegas nightclub wants Snooki to show up and thereby attract more customers, like Rutgers, they pay her at least $25,000 to put in an appearance. That too seems like a lot for two hours of hanging out until you do the Snookinomics.

LAX in Vegas, for example, on non-Snooki nights charges between $1,000 and $5,000 for a table, depending on its size and location. When she or an equivalent celebrity is in the house, these prices double. With 58 of its 60 tables then getting $2,000 and the other two, closest to Snooki, $10,000, with on average 10 seats per table, LAX pockets an extra $68,000.

There's more. They normally charge an entrance fee of $20 for women and $30 for men. With Snooki there, they typically draw an additional 350 customers who pay for tables; and by various complicated calculations, LAX nets $12,500 when a top-drawer celebrity graces its premises.

In addition, a lot of people show up just to hang out at the bar and drink, on average, four highballs each at $12 a pop. Many more cram in than when Snooki is home in bed. From them as well as from the extra customers at tables, LAX reveals that they make $45,000 in Snooki-derived bar business.

If I have this right, deducting the $25,000 honorarium for Snooki, LAX earns $105,500 more than they normally would and also garner all sorts of valuable free publicity from Facebookers and Tweeters who pass along that she was at the club and from pictures in magazines such as USWeekly.

What benefit, on the other hand, does Rutgers expect to derive from Snooki's on-campus standing-room-only lecture?

To quote the president of their Programming Association who booked her, "A large part of what brings students to a school is not just academics, but what you can offer outside of the classroom. We have to show applicants what kinds of fun we have, to show that students aren't dying from just reading books 24 hours a day."

This I can understand. I am the last person to want to see our future leaders made ill, or worse, having to study too hard.