The next time your heart swells with pride when you see military members honored on the Jumbotron or on the field of your favorite professional sports team, you can be assured that it is a genuine outpouring of patriotism on the part of the franchise and not a paid recruiting message.
U.S. senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Arizona Republicans, recently issued a report that detailed how the Department of Defense had spent more than $10 million of taxpayer money on marketing contracts with sports teams.
More than $6.8 million of that sum was spent with professional teams, in part to stage honor-the-military events during or before games without any mention to the public that these were paid, sponsored events.
McCain is probably the most famous veteran in Congress, having endured six years as a POW during the Vietnam War. Now 79, he has been a tireless advocate for veterans throughout his years of public service.
The two Arizonans successfully sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to end this practice.
Their efforts to dig the information out of the DOD and the professional sports teams were not easy, according to the senators, who termed the on-field activities as “paid patriotism.”
Eventually, staffers for the senators uncovered 122 contracts with professional sports franchises. The report includes testy correspondence between the senators and the Department of Defense, including a letter from Flake in which he called the DOD’s response to a request for information “unfortunately insufficient and wholly unsatisfactory.”
None of the St. Louis sports franchises was identified in the report as having participated in paid patriotism.
The senators acknowledged that not all of DOD’s $53 million spending on marketing was inappropriate. Billboards, clearly marked advertisements in print, on television, radio or online are legitimate parts of the recruiting process, which is ongoing and necessary to replenish the all-volunteer armed forces.
The “paid patriotism” report focuses on the National Football League, although it also details contracts with Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, professional soccer, NASCAR and some colleges.
Summaries of the marketing contracts are pretty sickening.
Every sports fan has seen those seemingly spontaneous in-crowd shots of soldiers in attendance. Over three seasons, the Texas Air National Guard got those at Dallas Mavericks basketball games. The idea is for the crowd to erupt into a patriotic fervor which sweeps over the building, including recruitment-age youngsters who probably think the tribute is pretty cool.
What none of them knew was that the guard paid the Mavericks $45,000 to do it.
That was a drop in the latrine bucket compared with others. The Buffalo Bills of the NFL got $650,000 to host on-field re-enlistment ceremonies, among other things.
Not to be outdone (and they weren’t), the Atlanta Falcons were paid $879,000 for various activities, including at least one of those heartwarming surprise reunions of a soldier running across the field to the tearful embrace of spouse and children.
Heart-tugging, all right – except it was totally bought and paid for.
A lot of what most fans would take for granted to be simply patriotic expression – color guards before the games, renditions of “God Bless America” at the seventh-inning stretch – came with a price tag.
Just a year or so removed from the Veterans Administration scandal, and revelations that some of those who gave the most died while waiting ridiculous lengths of time to get treatment, it is stomach-turning to think that other military-related money was wasted on phony “spontaneous” events in stadiums.
It’s even worse to consider that the money went into the already deep pockets of sports franchise kingpins, who then got credit with an unknowing public for being patriotic team owners.
Kudos to senators McCain and Flake for ferreting out what turned out to be not just misleading to the American people, but a questionable use of their money, too.
We’ll give the last word to Howard Bryant, an ESPN the Magazine columnist, who summed it up this way:
“Maybe fans should again be allowed to watch a game without having to guess when they’re being recruited by the National Guard, and maybe instead of billionaires profiting off veterans, the best way to honor returning soldiers is to hire them.”
