US Congress Flirting with Military Sports Sponsorship Ban

Multimillion-dollar racing sponsorships and other sports marketing activities by the U.S. military could be banned, under amendment attached last week by the House Appropriations Committee to the bill that will set the US Department of Defense budget.

Specifically targeted are agreements such as the one between the National Guard and NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The amendment, co-sponsored by Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum and Georgia Republican Jack Kingston, would prohibit the military from spending any money “to sponsor professional or semi-professional motorsports, fishing, wrestling or other sports.”

The National Guard’s investments, according to McCollom’s Web site, are valued at $20 million for fishing and $90 million for motorsports in 2011-’12. The Army and Air Force both have active sports-marketing programs. Sponsorships by the Navy and Marine Corps have been phased out.

The action comes as auto racing’s biggest weekend approaches. Last year, National Guard-sponsored cars nearly swept the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 races, with J.R. Hildebrand crashing and Earnhardt running out of gas, both while leading their respective races on the final lap.

Last week’s action in the House reprises McCollom’s effort last year to introduce legislation banning such efforts.

“At a time when Congress is increasing defense spending by cutting ‘Meals on Wheels’ for vulnerable seniors and nutrition programs for hungry children, it’s time to eliminate wasteful Pentagon spending on NASCAR, fishing and ultimate fighting sponsorships that have nothing to do with our national security,” McCollom said in a statement posted on her Web site.

Over the past few decades, following the advent of the all-volunteer military as the draft was phased out after 1972, branches of the armed forces have expanded their advertising and marketing campaigns to include sports sponsorships.

The service budgets also pay for conventional media advertising and outreach programs, including involvement in events such as high-school ball games, with displays, exhibitions and an interactive presence by military recruiters.

Those budgets are part of the Department of Defense spending plan, all elements of which are coming under hard scrutiny as the federal government goes deeper and deeper in debt and the economy stumbles.

Sponsorship of sporting events by the military dates from the 1991 Daytona 500, when five unsponsored cars were decorated in the livery of the five military services. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard did not pay for the advertising.