Whatever happened to the tradition of General Motors giving the Super Bowl MVP a new car? It happened; it's just that GM wanted to keep the presentation quiet this year. And for good reason.
Fact: Santonio Holmes made more than $2 million this season. Fact: The federal government just bailed out General Motors to the tune of $9.4 billion. So, why is GM giving Holmes an $85,000 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid Platinum, which has been, in effect, purchased by the taxpayers?
From the New York Daily News:
Breaking from recent tradition, there was no Cadillac on the field Sunday night during the Super Bowl awards ceremony and no Cadillac in the hotel ballroom Monday for the MVP news conference. Usually the MVP marks off on a board which car he wants. There was no board, either. It was all done in private.
There was no mention of Cadillac or of Holmes winning the car at the news conference. It was at the request of Cadillac, commissioner Roger Goodell told the Daily News Monday. When asked if Cadillac asked not to be mentioned, he said, "Yes."
Of course there's also a good chance that Santonio's new Cadillac was assembled by some of the 22,000 GM hourly workers who were just offered buyouts; with inevitable layoffs soon to follow.
Cadillac realizes how screwed up this is; it wasn't even at the Super Bowl. Their reasoning for going ahead with the car prize, it seems, is that they consider the federal money a loan, and not a bailout. Of course there's no telling what could happen with the economy in the immediate future; GM could end up being a chain of Chinese restaurants. But Holmes will still have the goddamned car that we paid for.
Why didn't GM opt out of its contract with the NFL?
"Given the current business environment, it was much more appropriate we not do that," Cadillac spokeswoman Joanne Krell said in a phone interview. "We made the decision not to actively participate in the Super Bowl. We congratulate the MVP, it is a great achievement. We are very sensitive to the federal assistance loan we have received and we want to carry on our fiduciary responsibility. The Super Bowl was not a place for us to be this year. That is not to say it's not a great platform."
So here's the deal, Holmes: I get the Cadillac on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can have Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Friday is first-come-first-serve, and Utah gets it on Sunday for church.
Cadillac Opts To Keep MVP Prize Quiet [New York Daily News]