NFL Admits More Than $723,000 In Taxpayer Funds Went Toward Military Celebrations
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- In what has to go down as the most shocking development of 2016 (or perhaps the entire decade), the NFL has admitted fault to wrongdoing.
The news comes in response to Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake criticizing the NFL for accepting money in exchange for holding on-field ceremonies and tributes to the military.
In a letter from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to both senators, released on Thursday, the league stated that most of the money accepted came in exchange for recruiting opportunities given to branches of the military. However, in that process, some of the money was improperly allocated to the ceremonies.
From 2012-15, "the audit identified $723,734 over those four seaons that may have been mistakenly applied to appreciation activities rather than recruitment efforts. This amount will be promptly returned in full to the taxpayers."
Back in November 2015, McCain and Flake released a report titled "Tackling Paid Patriotism," which suggested the Department of Defense spent $6.8 million of taxpayer money on sports marketing contracts. Locally, that included a reported $700,000 to the New England Patriots of the NFL, $280,000 to the Boston Bruins of the NHL, $195,000 to the Boston Celtics of the NBA, and $100,000 to the Boston Red Sox of MLB.
While the figures released by the NFL would suggest that such numbers found by McCain and Flake were too high, it is nevertheless noteworthy that the NFL did accept some responsibility for improperly handling the money from the Department of Defense.
Goodell claimed that in the audit conducted, auditors were instructed to err on the side of impropriety, and even with that standard, they came back with the number just north of $700,000.
The number doesn't jibe with the findings of Flake and McCain, numbers which came as the result of a very extensive research project. In the McCain/Flake report, the Department of Defense was accused of spending $879,000 with the Atlanta Falcons alone. And taken in conjunction with some recent NFL-led investigations (Robert Mueller's report following the Ray Rice video scandal, Ted Wells' reports on the Dolphins' bullying situation and the Patriots' deflated ball accusations, a questionable procedure in trying to obtain evidence against Greg Hardy, etc.), it's hard to believe the NFL's dollar amount at face value.
Still, admitting even one speck of fault has never been an ability of Goodell, the embattled commissioner who's managed to step in every pothole in his general vicinity over the past few years. And the admission of fault, low though it may be, was enough to please the senators in this case.
"In all the years I've spent trying to root out egregious federal spending, the NFL is the first organization to perform due diligence, take responsibility, and return funds to the taxpayers," Flake said. "The NFL's response to this investigation sets a new standard and only strengthens its reputation as a supporter of military service members and veterans."
"I applaud the NFL's audit in response to our oversight investigation into 'paid patriotism,'" McCain said. "Returning the $723,000 is the right thing to do. But the NFL is only one of several sports leagues we identified that accepted money from the Pentagon in return for honoring our troops. The other organizations – Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer – should also conduct an audit and return the money or donate it to service members, veterans and their families. We'll be working to once again include language in the defense authorization bill that would fully ensure the Defense Department never again spends American tax dollars to honor our troops."
Huh. The NFL doing things the right way and serving as the ethical leader among American professional sports leagues. Granted, it came only after they were challenged in a very public fashion by two U.S. Senators, and it only involved admitting to the bare minimum of wrongdoing. But still, there's something you truly don't see happen every day.
