The Green Bay Packers are one of 14 NFL teams who profited by taking military dollars, i.e. your tax dollars, to run farcical Hometown Heroes campaigns during games.
You know the ones. The Packers trot out some serviceman or woman during halftime and everyone stands and claps because, of course. Who doesn’t respect people in the military?
Well, those things are a fucking joke. They’re paid advertising. The Packers have collected $600,000 of our money to “honor” military personnel at games, since 2011.
And while we think that’s a complete load of bullshit, there is some good news. They aren’t taking that money anymore.
At least not this year.
The team’s PR guy, Aaron Popkey, said the Packers do not currently have a contract with the Wisconsin National Guard, which is where the majority of those advertising dollars came from.
That idiot also tried to defend the team taking that money by pointing out all of the other things the Packers do for the military. While those other things are swell, that’s not the point and we’re sure Popkey is aware of that.
The Packers took tax dollars to promote the military and posed those as non-promotional, organic, feel-good events.
That’s duplicitous at best.
It’s one thing to take sponsorship dollars and put up a billboard. We know what that is. It’s clearly an advertisement.
It’s another thing entirely to pretend you’re giving back to the community by honoring service people when you’re actually just collecting a check.
In our estimation, the Packers should take that $600,000 and figure out a way to give it back. The people of Wisconsin already give the organization enough of their money. They shouldn’t have to give them some of their tax dollars too.
This is conflicting due to my prior “service” (never deployed)
I think we still need to honor the military, but why is the military, any branch, paying to get that done? Shouldn’t the “Honor” be to host them and give some of these service men and woman who have been on even one much less multiple tours some nice food and box seats for a game?
That’s exactly where that 600,000 could go.
The national guard uses this as a recruitment tool, it’s just advertising.