Who would have known many of those smiling soldiers on the football stadium scoreboard, the ones home from war, were for sale? The stadium announcers never said this as they demanded fans stand and applaud the waving men on the screen. Somehow they forget to mention that the defense department has sold these soldiers’ names and stories and plights for the fiction that this tender moment came without a check written to the home team.



By late Wednesday afternoon the depth of just how much patriotism the defense department has been selling to sports teams had come clear in a report commissioned by Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake – both of Arizona. And it was extreme, if not obscene.

According to the report, taxpayers spent close to $7m on patriotic displays at professional and college sporting events over the last four years. This included the unfurling of a gigantic flag held by service members at an Atlanta Falcons game, the re-enlistment ceremony for 10 soldiers at Seattle’s Century Link Field and the recognition of Air Force officers at a Los Angeles Galaxy soccer game.

In fact the report lists 74 pages of examples where military branches (mostly the National Guard) paid more than 50 sports teams for patriotic acts that were disguised as benevolent contributions by the teams themselves.

“By paying for such heartwarming displays like recognition of wounded warriors, surprise homecomings, and on-field enlistment ceremonies, these displays lost their luster,” the senators said in the report. “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,”

For years, sports teams have wrapped themselves in gigantic flags like those unfurled across fields for the national anthem. But until the costs for such displays leaked out back in the spring no one much knew the Georgia National Guard paid the Falcons $879,000 the last four years – in part – to have its soldiers hold one of those enormous flags.

McCain and Flake’s report leave open the possibility more abuse exists. These were just the contracts the senator’s staffers could find in records searches

“It may also unfairly place some of our fans in the unfortunate position of questioning our intentions any time they see a military presence at a Jets home game or event,” the New York Jets complained in a statement after the original pay for patriotism story broke last spring

And yet this is exactly what McCain and Flake are asking. Just who is paying for these displays? The American public, it turns out.

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The New England Patriots included the recognition of a Massachusetts National Guard soldier and four season tickets, field passes and a VIP parking pass in return for the $700,000 the Guard paid them between fiscal year 2012 and 2014. Last year, the Milwaukee Brewers took $49,000 from the Wisconsin Army National Guard to let them sponsor the singing of God Bless America in the seventh inning of Sunday afternoon games.

What the senators don’t address is why the Pentagon is using our games as a recruiting tool at all. Sports have long been a refuge from our daily problems, a place where we escape the red scroll on the bottom of TV screens. Fans have been bombarded with so much overt patriotism in recent years from American flags covering entire football fields to the obligatory pre-game flyovers that they have become jaded by the experience.

The millions the defense department has spent on sports patriotism seem more for vanity than impact and that screams waste. In correspondences with the senators, defense officials claim the effort is part of recruiting. Brad Carson, the acting undersecretary of defense, wrote in a June memo to Flake that recruiting has been damaged by lower unemployment and the fact more young people have access to college.

A defense department memo from the same time says pro sports games are a “neutral environment” where recruiters can talk with potential soldiers. The memo also notes that 32% of 18-34 year-olds watch the NFL, implying that the patriotic displays it is paying for will inspire those 18-34 year-olds in front of their televisions to join the military.

But there is no evidence this strategy has worked. Given the high price of sports tickets today it seems unlikely the military will counter shrinking unemployment rates by finding a new pool of prospects at games where seats can cost hundreds of dollars. Likewise, most of the patriotic displays in the McCain-Flake report are for things that will be seen inside the stadium only and are rarely, if ever, shown on television. There is probably little chance a viewer will see a soldier being honored or a flag being unfurled before the national anthem

The 19-year-old on a couch will probably never know about the generals on the field or the giant flag before the game. If the primary reason to spend around $7m on patriotism at sporting events was to reach teens and 25-year-olds watching at home then the strategy has probably failed

Still, the paid patriotism has continued until recently when the Pentagon agreed – under the pressure of McCain and Flake’s investigation – to update their policy. Such paid displays are now forbidden. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has said his league is looking into the contracts their team signed to see if any arrangements were improper. USA Today reported the senators have urged Goodell to force his teams to donate the money to veterans’ organizations.

Perhaps the most shocking thing in the report is how little oversight the defense department seemed to have over this spending. Memos show each state’s national guard had great freedom in deciding how to spend their marketing money. The memos say paying teams for tickets and player appearances are forbidden now. McCain and Flake have proposed legislation that will stop much of the paid patriotism if it passes.

But the bigger question is: Why was it allowed to happen in the first place?