It doesn’t feel right at all to you.  It feels downright fraudulant.  In fact, considering who was involved, it’s borderline disgusting.

The NFL is scrambling after Senator John McCain exposed them in their latest money-grab, the Pay-for-Patriotism advertising campaign.

It’s another item to add to the checklist of shady business dealings executed by the NFL, Roger Goodell, its ownerships, including Dean Spanos.

McCain unearths information that as part of the Department of Defense’s marketing plan to recruit people into the military, the Government spent 6.8M in taxpayers dollars over a 4-year period, to advertise in NFL Stadiums.

The Chargers received 435,000 in advertising buys thru the DOD, as the Military became an in-stadium sponsor of Chargers home games.

What we saw were great emotional military displays, fly overs, full field flags, salutes to Wounded Warriors, military honored in skyboxes, featured on the big screen scoreboard.  All things designed for us to extend an emotional thanks for all who have put themselves in harms way against global terror.

Now we find out it was staged.  It was a sponsored advertising campaign.  It was the NFL teams charging big money rates for the military to sponsor all this.  Pay for the Patriotism display at selected home games.

It’s shameful, that the mega-profit owners of NFL teams, have to stoop so low to create this ‘love the soldier’ image at home games, when it reality, it is ‘love your money’, and here’s an idea.

I have no doubt this came out of the NFL league office, some marketing executive creating this special emotional attachment imagery to an in stadium promotion. all the while making sure teams got a cut of the DOD advertising budget.

The Chargers are no less guilty than any other NFL team.  Assume Robert Kraft and Jerry Jones and many others, in addition to Spanos felt good about the on-field presentation, and even better about the profits they made.

In an era when we weep for those who died, and those who suffered life changing wounds by serving their country, does this not make you sick to your stomach?  It should.  It would if one of your family members was a victim of snipers, or shell fragments or the trauma.

The NFL, without regard to moral obligation, just seems to go on and on.

A year ago, there was the scandal about how much the NFL profited from the Breast Cancer weekend, where everyone wore pink, everyone stood up for women victims of breast cancer, only to find out the NFL and its manufacturers took a large volume of the money taken in, rather than send it on for cancer research.

Need we remind you of the Dallas Super Bowl ticket scandal in the Cowboys stadium, the ticket prices for seats that didn’t exist, or were constructed with limited views just before game day, that led to lawsuits.

And though they never admitted to anything, we have the 935M concussion lawsuit for all those players with CTE, brain damage, Alzheimers-Dimentia, and those who committed suicide.  You don’t really believe out of the goodness of their heart, the NFL owners just decided to write a check do you, or was it because they knew, and their was evidence out there, that was going to show up in lawsuit discovery?

Power and greed corrupt.  I’ve believed it for a long time.  It seems we are revisiting that issue again with the “Pay for Patriotism” promotion that has been uncovered.  .

Roger Goodell says his office will investigate.  They may order the money returned, or maybe donated to Military families in need.

Pick a word to describe it.  Disgusting, Dirty, Corrupt.

Playing off the emotions of the fans and the flag, while pocketing big profits.

It would be nice to see a formal NFL apology, on every NFL TV-broadcast on a given week, when all this is sorted out.

The NFL reaching a new all-time low.

-0-

Please follow and like us: