Sports scandal: About those military tributes

Just about every sports fan has blinked away a few tears during the touching military tributes teams host before or during games.

Those tears might turn to raised eyebrows if those fans suspected the sports leagues were actually being paid by the military to run those tributes. Think of it as a form of product placement.

A report from the U.S. Senate released this week found the Department of Defense has spent more than $9 million over the past four years on military tributes at games, with the bulk of the spending going to NFL teams.

Sen. Jeff Flake and other lawmakers have uncovered 122 different contracts between the DoD and individual teams and leagues across all of the major sports, as well as auto racing, college football and Major League Soccer.

Over the past four years, eight of the 10 teams receiving the biggest payday for military tributes were from the NFL, led by the Atlanta Falcons, No. 1 overall at $879,000.

The top-ranking non-NFL team was the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, No. 4 overall at $570,000. The only other non-NFL team in the top 10 was Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves, No. 9 overall at $450,000.

The situation has drawn criticism because the tributes are now being viewed as for-pay events to encourage patriotism and recruiting, even though they appear to be staged as goodwill gestures by the teams.

Still, the $9 million spent on the practice in the past four years by the DoD is peanuts to that department, which has a reported budget of $600 billion this year.

Tags: controversies, military, nfl, nfl controversies, nfl military, nfl military scandal