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Wild, Vikings mentioned in report critical of Pentagon’s ‘paid patriotism
by Marino Eccher, Pioneer Press:
The Minnesota Wild were among the biggest recipients in recent years of U.S. Department of Defense contracts that included paid military tribute events before and during professional sports games, according to a new report.
The Vikings have also taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars from similar contracts, with the Lynx getting a smaller piece of the action, the report said.
A Minnesota National Guard spokesman said that the deals — which some teams and leagues are re-examining — are part of comprehensive recruitment efforts and that teams have also showed strong unpaid support for military members apart from their contracts.
The practice came to light earlier this year. The Pentagon said sports marketing was an important recruiting tool but nixed paid tributes, saying they sent the wrong message.
McCain and Flake’s report covered contracts involving paid tributes over the past four years. The lion’s share went to the NFL — the Atlanta Falcons led the way with $879,000, and nine of the top 10 recipients were football teams.
The lone exception: the Wild, to whom the report attributed the fourth-highest total for any individual team listed. The team has received $570,000 in Minnesota Army National Guard contracts in recent years, the report said — $235,000 in 2012 and 2013, and another $100,000 in 2015.
Not all of that money necessarily went to paid tributes, the report acknowledged. Many teams are also paid by the military for things like traditional advertising and booth space. The report did not include a more detailed breakdown.
But the paid contracts included provisions for an on-ice appreciation ceremony for soldiers, recognition of a “soldier of the game” on the video board during every home game and the opportunity for a soldier to rappel from the arena catwalk to deliver the game puck, the report said.
