After a Senate report condemning displays of ‘paid patriotism’ at sports events was released on Wednesday, the National Football League has pledged to audit all contracts with the Department of Defense and provide refunds to the military.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote to Congress that the NFL did not support “the use of recruitment funds for anything other than their proper purpose” and that it would investigate and refund inappropriate payments.

During the initial negotiations of the 2016 defense spending bill, we reported that Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jeff Flake were attempting to bring an end to “paid patriotism” at major league sports events. Failing that after a presidential veto, McCain and Flake unloaded a damning report of the DoD’s spending on Wednesday.

In their report, McCain and Flake write that it is disingenuous to pretend major sports leagues are supporting the military through large patriotic displays when they are being paid to do so behind the scenes.

“Americans deserve the ability to assume that tributes for our men and women in military uniform are genuine displays of national pride, which many are, rather than taxpayer-funded DOD marketing gimmicks,” the senators wrote.

Spokesmen for the NFL and other sports clubs such as the NHL and NBA agree that military recruitment campaigns should not be disguised as patriotic tributes.

NBA spokesman Mike Bass said, “These tributes are not paid for by the military. We will perform an additional review to ensure that this is the case.”