How To Sell A Newspaper With Strippers, Daily News-Style

The Daily News understands something fundamental about moving copies of the paper during the slow summer season: Sex sells. The Sunday edition of the paper featured a front page exposé of strip clubs that focused on practices at high end clubs like Rick’s Cabaret and Scores. But as a family newspaper, there’s nothing too salacious here — if you don’t count the fact that A-Rod (oh no!) frequents Rick’s Cabaret like it’s Toronto. The New York branch of Rick’s grosses around $800,000 monthly and nets a $300,000 profit; strippers at Rick’s and Scores work as 1099 employees who pay the club for the right to work (at Rick’s, $100 nightly; at Scores, $300 nightly) and keep all tips and credit-card charges and high spending customers are fingerprinted to avoid “day-after disputes.”