Fraud: Defense Dept. paid pro sports teams millions to honor military members
Americans are slowly discovering that those events — appearing to be impromptu — in which a returning soldier or Marine enters a sports stadium and surprises his loved ones are in fact staged and paid for by the U.S. taxpayers not the multi-billion dollar professional sports teams, according to two GOP senators on Wednesday.
The Pentagon paid more than $9 million to professional sports franchises to stage phony “paid patriotism” events, Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain disclosed Wednesday. The events ranged from full-field displays of the American flag to enlistment and re-enlistment ceremonies and emotional reunion events where a service member returns to the surprise of family members.
“Unsuspecting audience members became the subjects of paid marketing campaigns rather than simply bearing witness to teams’ authentic, voluntary shows of support for the brave men and women who wear our nation’s uniform,” the senators reported.
“It is hard to understand how a team accepting taxpayer funds to sponsor a military appreciation game, or to recognize wounded warriors or returning troops, can be construed as anything other than paid patriotism,” it states. McCain is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Among the biggest beneficiaries were NFL teams, which were paid more than $6 million. The Atlanta Falcons received $879,000; the New England Patriots, $700,000; and the Buffalo Bills, $650,000. The Atlanta Braves received $450,000, the most of any Major League Baseball franchise, while the Minnesota Wild were paid $570,000, the most of any National Hockey League team.
“Fans should not be unknowing viewers of a paid-marketing campaigns. I am pleased that the Department of Defense has banned paid patriotism and the NFL has called on clubs to stop accepting payment for patriotic salutes,” said Senator Flake. “Professional sports teams do a lot of good for our military, but paid patriotism on the taxpayers’ dime cheapens true displays of patriotism.”
“Americans across the country should be deeply disappointed that many of the ceremonies honoring troops at professional sporting events are not actually being conducted out of a sense of patriotism, but for profit in the form of millions in taxpayer dollars going from the Department of Defense to wealthy pro sports franchises,” said Senator McCain. “Fans should have confidence that their hometown heroes are being honored because of their honorable military service, not as a marketing ploy.”
Flake and McCain’s report comes after months of investigative work, through which DOD failed to adequately provide the senators’ staff with information they requested regarding the scale of these paid tributes. More than a third of the contracts highlighted in the senators’ report were not provided by DOD, but instead discovered through their own investigative work. Forty-eight percent of those discovered contracts contained some form of paid patriotism.
