The Post reports that the findings stemmed from the discovery that the New Jersey National Guard paid $115,000 to the New York Jets to honor soldiers at home games.
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The report began by citing a 2013 Atlanta Falcons pro football game at which 80 National Guard members unfurled a huge US flag on the field of the Georgia Dome. Senators have already amended the National Defense Authorization Act to prohibit the payments, and called on the leagues to donate the money to veterans’ organizations.
The oversight report found that the Department of Defense couldn’t account for how many contracts it has awarded or how much money has been spent on the program.
The Defense Department paid millions of dollars to pro sports teams to stage patriotic and “heartwarming” tributes at games, according to a congressional report. While that news is distressing, it might be comforting to know that the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers come off pretty clean in the report where the top ten teams took anywhere between $400,000 and almost $900,000 in money in exchange for “marketing”.
Of the 122 contracts analyzed, 72 were for “paid patriotism”, and most of those were sponsored by the Army National Guard.
“Fans should not be unknowing viewers of paid-marketing campaigns”, he said. The military paid $1.6 million to NASCAR, and provided funds to teams in the National Basketball Association, NHL, NFL, Major League Baseball and MLS.
Among the biggest beneficiaries were National Football League teams, which were paid more than $6 million.
Other Boston sports teams also received Pentagon payments, according to the report.
The September memo from the Pentagon said the military branches should “neither fund nor approve any sports marketing or sports related contract in which the terms of the contract require the service to pay…to honor members of the armed services”.
Atlanta is ground zero for taxpayer-funded military tributes, according to a new U.S. Senate report out today showing that the Falcons, Braves and Hawks took in the most money in their respective leagues to put on displays honoring soldiers.
Flake said the rest of the documents were collected by Senate staff and charged the department with stonewalling out of embarrassment. The Pentagon has already begun to react to McCain and Flake’s push to end the use of taxpayer dollars on such activities.
The senators’ report says in part: “While many professional sporting teams do include patriotic events as a pure display of national pride, this report highlights far too many instances when that is simply not the case”. Congress passed that defense spending bill last month, with the “paid patriotism” provision included, but President Barack Obama vetoed the bill for reasons unrelated to the amendment.
Goodell said the league is auditing contracts and will return any “inappropriate payments” it might find. McCain said in the release.
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In correspondence included in the report, Defense Department officials said they were continuing to gather information on the issue.
