During the seventh-inning stretch of each Sunday home game in 2014, Brewers fans rose to their feet to sing "God Bless America" as the Wisconsin Army National Guard's logo flashed across the Miller Park video board.
A patriotic gesture by the Brewers? Sure — but also a sound financial decision. The National Guard paid the team $49,000 to sponsor those performances.
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That was one example outlined in a 150-page report released Wednesday by U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Republicans from Arizona. They detailed numerous instances of "paid patriotism" in the $10.4 million the U.S. Department of Defense spent on sports marketing and advertising between fiscal years 2012 and 2015.
"While many professional sporting teams do include patriotic events as a pure display of national pride, this report highlights far too many instances when that is simply not the case," according to their report.
The report was commissioned in the wake of revelations this spring that the Jets and other NFL teams received millions from the Defense Department to stage salutes to the troops and reunions of deployed service members and their families.
According to the report, the NFL has told teams to stop accepting payment for patriotic salutes.
Though it acknowledges legitimate use of funding by the Defense Department for the purchase of in-stadium advertising, among other items, the report blasts the department for using taxpayer money for military recognition during NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS games. Among the expenditures highlighted in the report:
— The New Jersey Army National Guard paid $20,000 to the Jets to recognize one or two soldiers as "hometown heroes" on the video board at each 2012 home game. A post on Flake's website in May called the expenditures an "egregious and unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars."
— The Air Force paid the Mets $10,000 in 2014 for an on-field swearing-in ceremony.
— The Air Force paid the Mavericks $5,000 to have staffers throw out USAF T-shirts at four home games and hold two on-court enlistment ceremonies.
Contracts reviewed in the report also noted numerous instances of the Army National Guard, the Air Force or other agencies paying to hold ceremonial puck drops, salute-to-the-military nights, color-guard ceremonies and other events without specifying the amount.
The Defense Department has said that any such high-visibility events can be justified as having recruiting benefits. The senators disagree, writing:
"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."
The report mentioned these NFL teams as having received money for "marketing gimmicks": The Bengals, Browns, Cowboys, Colts, Chiefs, Dolphins, Steelers and Rams.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the NFL will audit all contracts between its 32 teams and various military branches. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a letter to McCain and Flake that any improper payments to any of the teams would be refunded. The letter, written Monday, was included in the senators' report.
"We strongly oppose the use of recruitment funds for anything other than their proper purpose,” Goodell wrote. “If we find that inappropriate payments were made, they will be refunded in full.”
The Cardinals have held similar tributes but were not mentioned in the senators' report. McCain is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war after his jet was shot down in North Vietnam. Like Flake, he is a noted fiscal conservative. In 2013, Flake referred to himself as "the biggest cheapskate in the Senate."
