Pentagon paid sports teams millions for patriotic events There is no solid evidence the events helped recruiting efforts.

Bill Theobald | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Senators claim military paid for patriotic pregame displays An investigation revealed the Department of Defense spent millions of dollars on patriotic displays at sporting events since 2012. Video provided by Newsy

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has paid more than $9 million to professional sports franchises the past four years, including $6.8 million to stage “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 reunions of returning servicemembers and their families.

“What is upsetting is when you see activities like this that people assume when they go to games are paid for out of the goodness of the heart by the owners and the teams, and then to find out the taxpayers are paying for it. It kind of cheapens (it) and it’s simply not right," Flake said at a news conference with McCain to release the report.

The advertising-marketing contracts were intended to help with recruiting efforts, but the military has no hard evidence they were effective. Many of the agreements involved the National Guard. The exact amount of the marketing contracts that went toward activities deemed as paid patriotism could not be determined.

The report includes details of contracts with payments totaling $9.1 million to teams in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer. Investigators identified $6.8 million worth of contracts to the major sports teams that included events considered to be paid patriotism.

NFL teams were among the biggest beneficiaries, receiving more than $6 million, according to the report. 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.

The Atlanta contracts included a 2013 event during which a roaring crowd cheered as the Falcons welcomed 80 guard members who unfurled an American flag across the Georgia Dome’s turf.

“Little did those fans — or millions of other Americans — know that the National Guard had actually paid the Atlanta Falcons for this display of patriotism,” the report said.

Besides the major sports franchises, the military paid NASCAR about $1.6 million. For that the U.S. Air Force received, among other things, personal appearances by driver Aric Almirola and retired driving legend Richard Petty.

In statements in the report, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Falcons owner Arthur Blank defend the voluntary support the league and its teams provide to the military. Goodell said the league is conducting an audit of all the agreements between teams and the military and would refund any "inappropriate" payments. At Wednesday's news conference, McCain called on teams to donate the money they received to charity, particularly ones that help veterans.

President Obama's spokesman, Josh Earnest, offered a mild defense Tuesday of the military using sporting events as a promotional stage.

"I'm not aware that the president has weighed in on this, and I will acknowledge that I'm not aware of the policies that govern those kinds of relationships," Earnest said. "I do know that the Department of Defense would likely say that these kinds of relationships enhance their recruiting efforts."

In a July letter to Flake, Brad Carson, acting undersecretary of defense, said the improvement in the economy had made recruiting more difficult and that marketing was needed to meet recruiting goals. "Sports events are an important component of this process," he wrote.

Flake asked in May for records of all marketing contracts since 2012 between military and sports franchises after discovering one between the New Jersey Army National Guard and the New York Jets.

But the material he received from the Pentagon was incomplete and in some cases misleading, the report said. Military officials turned over only about two-thirds of the 122 contracts identified by Senate investigators.

In correspondence included in the report, Defense Department officials said they were continuing to gather information on the issue. In the meantime, both the National Guard and the Defense Department have banned some practices, such as paying for player appearances and ceremonies such as enlistments.

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.”

In addition, the military authorization bill recently passed by Congress, but vetoed by President Obama, included a provision banning the military from entering into any agreements in which it pays for events honoring members of the military. A revised version of the authorization bill is expected to be voted on in Congress soon.

In the report, the Arizona senators said they “hope that both DOD and the professional sports teams will refrain from signing marketing and advertising contracts that could suggest even the appearance of impropriety.”

“Americans deserve the ability to assume that tributes for our men and women in military uniform are genuine displays of national pride, which many are, rather than taxpayer-funded DOD marketing gimmicks,” the report concludes.

McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was not planning to hold hearings on the issue. He said the changes already made by the services plus the ban on paid patriotism events included in the military authorization bill make any further action unnecessary.