In a meeting on Tuesday, the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority gave the green light for $11.25 million in subsidies to go to the Miss America pageant as part of a three-year deal, The Press of Atlantic City reports.

The deal marks an increase in state financial support of Miss America. A previous agreement, which expired after the 2015 pageant in September, brought Miss America back to Atlantic City from Las Vegas in 2013 with a total of $7.3 million in subsidies over three years to underwrite the cost of producing the show.

One stipulation of the new deal is that Dick Clark Productions, which oversaw marketing of the 2016 pageant last September, will have to promote Atlantic City during its other productions, the Billboard Music Awards and New Year's Rockin' Eve, the report says, adding that not everyone on the CRDA board was in favour of the deal. Those voting against the contract included Mark Giannantonio, CEO of Resort Casino Hotel and Howard Kyle, Atlantic County chief of staff.

In November, while the fate of the pageant in Atlantic City was still uncertain, and the CRDA was still in negotiations with pageant officials, the Miss America Organization, also based in the city, announced a three-year deal with ABC. That deal ensured the pageant would continue to be broadcast on network TV through Miss America 2019, which will take place in September 2018.

After the Miss America pageant left Atlantic City its home since 1921-for Las Vegas and the event broadcast moved to cable from network TV, ratings flagged.

In 2013, the pageant, back on ABC, came back to Atlantic City from Las Vegas with a three-year contract that ended in 2015.