So I guess the Fiesta Bowl is not just a BCS game that’s played once per year, but is actually an actual corporation, complete with ridiculous expenditures and a big CEO firing. That CEO, John Junker, was fired amid cries of the Fiesta Bowl losing its status as a BCS bowl game.
Top executives at the Fiesta Bowl, the host of one of the nation’s pre-eminent college football games, funneled campaign contributions to local politicians, flew other Arizona elected officials around the country at the bowl’s expense, racked up a $1,000 bill at a strip club, and even spent $30,000 on a birthday party for the chief executive, according to an investigative report commissioned by the bowl’s board of directors.
Wait, so Junker had a birthday party AND went to a strip club in two separate events? Jeez, Jeff. Was it your birthday or something?
The Fiesta Bowl had covered $13,086 in expenses connected with one employee’s wedding in Kansas City. Junker bestowed on others such gifts as iPads, gift cards and, most bizarre, bullion. He purchased (and billed to the bowl) some $22,000 worth of gold and silver coins.
And then there were campaign contributions made by Fiesta Bowl employees that were later reimbursed by the bowl. That’s a felony, which is pretty awesome. I’m just relieved that we’re finally discussing actual crime, and not Barry Bonds’s balls.
