Pentagon Paid Pro Sports Teams Millions for Patriotic Events

The Department of Defense doled out $10 million of taxpayer money to clubs in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS over the last three years as part of a multimillion-dollar program to promote the armed services and boost recruitment through patriotic events, game tickets, player appearances and other perks, according to a Senate report release Wednesday, NBC News reported.

"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," Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, the report's co-authors, wrote.

The report summarizes the conclusions of an investigation McCain and Flake began last spring, after they discovered that advertising contracts revealed weekly "hometown hero" tributes hosted by the New York Jets and New England Patriots were paid for by taxpayer money.

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