In the hopes of undoing some of the public relations damage involved with the “pay for patriotism” report by United States Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, the National Football League has written a cheque to the Department of Defense. While it’s a positive thing that the NFL returned DOD funds, there’s more to the story.
Chris Isidore of CNN has reported that the NFL returned $724,000 that the Senate report deemed “inappropriate.” NFL teams did receive much more than the $744,000, but the report stated that those payments for activities such as booths and signs in NFL stadiums urging fans to join the armed forces were appropriate.
The kicker is that the NFL itself didn’t receive any DOD funds. Its individual teams were the parties who were paid by the DOD. The NFL writing a check is like a juvenile’s parent paying a fine for her/his child. Additionally, it wasn’t just NFL teams which were paid for ceremonies like giant flag unfurlings and color guard presentations.
The original Senate report listed an amount of $6.8 million paid to teams in the NFL, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer. It’s true that NFL teams received much more than teams in other leagues, but a great chunk of that money deemed inappropriately paid is still unaccounted for.
MLB has advised its teams to avoid any activity that might even appear to be taking money in exchange for patriotic displays, but no MLB teams or the league itself have yet to return a penny. The same goes for MLS, the NBA and the NHL.
While Congress has banned such payments as of last year, it has not taken any action to recoup the inappropriate payments. Right now, Senator McCain is hoping that the other leagues will follow the NFL’s example, as there are some questions about the DOD’s legal ability to forcibly recoup the payments.
Time will tell whether or not other leagues and/or teams will write checks to the DOD. It could be that they simply hope that the matter will be forgotten with the passage of time. The NFL has stepped up and made reparations for the mistakes of its member franchises, placing pressure on other leagues to do the same. If the DOD wants to see more of those dollars returned, that pressure might be its only hope.
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