Last week Amazon announced its 20 finalists out of 238 proposals received in the search for the site of its second headquarters. Saturday Night Live took it upon themselves to mock Amazon's search.
The winner of the headquarters will reportedly receive 50,000 new jobs.
Saturday Night Live Parody
Along with parodies of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, New Jersey Senator Corey Booker and Paula Deen also appeared in the sketch. It depicted some, if not all, of the finalist cities making their pitch for Bezos for Amazon's second headquarters.
First up was Boston featuring a parody of Casey Affleck, with guest host Jessica Chastain delivering the pitch. Next was Atlanta featuring Paula Deen mentioning the Olympic bombing in 1996. Newark's proposal featured Corey Booker, who knows that the city has a low chance of receiving the headquarters. Miami was the last city to pitch, which featured a heavy presence of pop star Pitbull.
Amazon saw more than 238 cities submit proposals for the second headquarters. The sketch works off the desperation of the cities that want to be the winner of the "competition." Amazon's shortlist of cities veered away from the West Coast where the company is already headquartered. The geographic location with the majority of bids on the shortlist is the Washington, DC area with its three sites — Montgomery County, Maryland, Northern Virginia.
Bending Over Backwards
Just like the sketch pointed out, cities and locations across the country were desperate to receive the benefits of Amazon's second headquarters. Bids were sent from across the country, even by those sites that didn't meet Amazon's requirements.
Some of the requirements include a metro population of more than 1 million people, within 45 minutes of an international airport.
States such as Delaware were ready to give Amazon one of the biggest tax cuts in history just to be the chosen site. Des Moines, Iowa was also willing to give Amazon large tax cuts like it did for Apple when it built a new data center.
Apple only provided 50 new jobs compared to Amazon's 50,000.
Puerto Rico was also one of the locations that submitted a bid. The U.S. territory is currently recovering from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island. Puerto Rico would have benefited from the 50,000 new jobs, as its economy still hasn't recovered from the effects of the Great Recession.
