America’s game: The NFL’s “Salute to Service” campaign, the diffused military presence, and corporate social responsibility

ABSTRACT

This article critiques the National Football League’s (NFL) “Salute to Service” campaign that highlights and celebrates the US military. As the campaign produces a saturation of military symbolism and iconography in and around regular season games, the campaign turns away from the unique “mega-event” model of military ceremonial display and toward a “diffused military presence” that casually incorporates the military into everyday life via the entertainment and branding structures of the league. It further constructs the league as not just a compassionate corporate citizen passively embodying “American values,” but as an ideologically active and authoritative American public institution.