The Fiesta Bowl Paid For Strip Club Visits

Everyone in college football is just as corrupt as everyone else.

That doesn't exclude Fiesta Bowl officials. They've released the results of an internal investigation, and here's a partial litany of violations, as obtained by the New York Times:

[Executives] 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.

That CEO, John Junker, was fired today after the investigation became public. For your reading pleasure, here's the full text of the report.

There's a lot to peruse there, but we need to highlight our favorite part: Junker entertained a consultant in 2008 by taking him to a Phoenix strip club to the tune of $1200 in drinks and lap dances, and tried to justify it to investigators by saying he needed to know about the place in order to to keep college players away from there.

On September 12, 2008, Junker, Aaron Brown, and Shawn Schoeffler spent the evening at Phoenix's Bourbon Street, which claims to be a "World Famous Strip Club." Aaron Brown is a Maricopa County Sheriff's lieutenant who owns Blue Steel Consulting, Inc., a company that provides security services to the Fiesta Bowl.

Junker's American Express statement includes five separate charges from Bourbon Street for the evening, totaling $1,241.75 (The men also spent $46 at Z Tejas, a restaurant, and $48.47 at Tilted Kilt, a bar, that evening, all paid for by the Fiesta Bowl.) Junkeracknowledged that the more than $1,200 spent at Bourbon Street that evening was not all spent for food and drink but "in all likelihood" included the payment for women to dance for them. One of the investigators retained by counsel to the Special Committee conducted an investigation that concluded that the individual amounts that totaled up to the night's charges equated with the charges for private dances. The Fiesta Bowl paid for the drinks and all the strip club charges.

The handwritten description on Junker's American Express statement for the strip club visit said "Junker, A. Brown-security site planning." Junker stated that they did discuss business during the evening and that there was a business purpose to the Bourbon Street visit: "We are in the business were big strong athletes are known to attend these types of establishments. It was important for us to visit and we certainly conducted business."

There were at least eight other trips to the Bourbon Street strip club in employees' receipts, spanning multiple years. It's a Fiesta!

Fiesta Bowl Spending and Donations Questioned [NY Times]

UPDATE: "The BCS has asked the Fiesta Bowl 'to demonstrate why it should remain a BCS bowl game.'"