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Who knew that we had to pay NFL teams to honor the men and women who fought for the freedom to play football?
According to The Department of Defense and the Jersey Guard, the NY Jets have received $377,000 from 2011 to 2014. That’s a just a pinch of the combined amount of the total 14 NFL teams have paid. The bigger figure paid by the Department of Defense is $5.4 million and out of that, $5.3 million was paid solely by the National Guard to 11 of those teams under a contract.
Arizona’s Republican Senator Jeff Flake calls it wasteful spending and the focus is on the Jets here.
Flake said, “Those of us go to sporting events and see them honoring the heroes. You get a good feeling in your heart. Then to find out they’re doing it because they’re compensate for it, it leaves you underwhelmed. It seems a little unseemly.”
In this agreement, the Jets’ “Hometown Hero” will feature their selected soldier or soldiers on the big jumbotron, announce their names and ask the fans to show their appreciation to them men or women being honored.
The soldiers and some friends are allowed seats in the “Coaches Club” for the entire game.
The “Hometown Hero” isn’t all that’s done for the National Guard, there is advertising and marketing too, including a “kickoff video message from the Guard.”
There is so much more… the soldier or soldiers get to have a kickoff lunch in NYC, meet and greet including pics with some players for “promotional use”, the Jets allow the soldiers to participate in a charity event of rebuilding or building a playground or a park. This rebuilding or building is something done by coaches and Jets players.
There is a spokesperson for the Guard, Patrick Daugherty and he said, “Promoting and increasing the public’s understanding and appreciation of military service in the New Jersey Army National Guard increases the propensity for service in our ranks and garners public support for our Hometown team.”
AND the Jets’ spokesperson, Bruce Speight, said, the team has “consistently supported all five branches of the U.S. armed forces. As with all our sponsors, we have worked with the National Guard to create tailored advertising and marketing programs to meet their specific objectives which in this case was recruitment and retention by targeting our fans and audience through media and stadium assets controlled by the team”
The Jets made $1 million in contributing to Building for America’s Bravest.
“Building for America’s Bravest” is described on their website as, “is a program of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation that builds Smart Homes for our most catastrophically injured service members returning home. Each home is custom designed to address the unique needs of each individual.”
Of course, since there are 14 other teams who have contracts with the National Guard, they also listed the Colts and Ravens as a couple of the other teams who have contracts like the Jets does.
There is nothing wrong with recruiting soldiers, but why does it have to be at the tax-payers expense? Why should they have to pay millions in a contract when it’s something that the NFL, the Jets or whoever else should want to do to honor their heroes?
Via:NJ.com
