Do the prizes still matter?

Tweet

With all the hoopla surrounding American Idol and the seemingly "more significant" and "more illustrious" offers to non-winners/finalists, do the prizes still matter or do you think the offers for modeling, endorsements, guestings and the like are more important now? For Constantine Maroulis, for instance, he's now a spokesperson for Yahoo Buzz and he's done Broadway plays. Do you think people still join AI for the prizes or for other reasons?