Two Congressmen trying to get rid of military sponsorships in sports

Jack Kingston, R-Ga., and Betty McCollum, D-Minn., plan to present a second amendment today in the House of Representatives banning military sports sponsorships to ensure a vote.

The second amendment would be presented when H.R. 5856, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2013, is heard in the House. It is scheduled for Wednesday, according to a legislative schedule kept by the Majority Leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.

If either amendment survives and the bill eventually becomes law, it would bar the National Guard from sponsoring Dale Earnhardt Jr. in NASCAR and J.R. Hildebrand in IndyCar, the Army from sponsoring Tony Schumacher in NHRA and the Marine Corps from sponsoring the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

A similar amendment by McCollum twice failed in the House last year.

The main difference with the new amendment and the one in H.R. 5856 is that the new one specifically targets the $72.3 million the military branches have budgeted for sports sponsorships in fiscal year 2013 and that the savings would go toward deficit reduction.

The new amendment set to be presented Wednesday seeks to strip the National Guard of $53.9 million budgeted toward sports sponsorships. The amendment also would strip the Navy of $4.2 million, Army of $4.1 million and Marine Corps of $2.3 million.

Seventy-two million bucks is a lot of money, said Bill Harper, chief of staff for Rep. McCollum. Were fine with the military advertising, were fine with the military recruiting at these professional sports events, absolutely. Thats not the intention of this amendment at all. The sponsorships are something completely different.

With regards to sponsorship, the numbers dont demonstrate that its effective. The Armys decision only validates that.

The Army announced last week that it would not sponsor a car and not return to NASCAR after this season.

The Army spent $8.4 million on its NASCAR program this year and will discontinue the decade-long program because the bottom line is the return has to make enough sense and the decision was made in the case of NASCAR that we could invest those resources into other things that would have a higher marketing payoff for us, said John Myers of the Army Marketing and Research Group.

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Two Congressmen trying to get rid of military sponsorships in sports