Last year, it came to light many NFL teams — the Green Bay Packers among them — were taking money from the Department of Defense to stage ceremonies where they “honored the troops” during games.
We were all sitting around thinking the Packers were doing something good, but instead they were just pocketing checks. The Packers had reportedly taken in either $200,000 or $600,000, depending on whose numbers you believed.
And boy, did the idiots in the PR department get testy when they were questioned about it.
The standard became, “But we have all KINDS of programs for the military!”
Right, but you took money from them too. OUR money.
Taxpayer money.
Oh, and also, you played everyone for a bunch or morons by not making it clear that these “ceremonies” were actually a bunch of recruiting advertisements.
But hey, you’re the Packers. You can’t do anything wrong and by god, even if you do, DON’T EVER FUCKING ADMIT IT!”
Well, there’s good news here.
After a Senate report detailed just how much NFL teams received from the DOD, the league came out and said they were going to do an audit and give that money back.
The audit is done and some money is being returned.
It’s not clear how much of the Packers’ share is being returned, but the total going back to DOD is $723,734. That seems like a really small amount, considering NFL teams took in $6.1 million from their military advertising contracts.
The audit was performed by the independent firm of Deloitte & Touche and they were supposedly instructed to err on the side of paid patriotism if there was a question. So, we’ll buy the figure as somewhat accurate, at least for the sample they were given.
They reviewed 100 agreements from 2012 to 2015. Were there just 100 agreements during that time? Were there other agreements before 2012?
It seems likely that those answers are no and yes, respectively.
The important thing here is that this bullshit is over with. The NFL has said they won’t allow it anymore. And, we guess they did something — probably not a full accounting — but something to put that money back where it belongs.