Watchdog Group's Report Shows NFL Spent $1.14M On Federal Lobbying In '12

DC-based government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW) yesterday released a report entitled "Defensive Game," in which it broke down the federal lobbying spending of the NFL and NFLPA during the '12 calendar year. The report shows that the NFL last year spent $1.14M on federal lobbying, an increase of more than five times its spending in '02. Meanwhile, the NFLPA saw its spending triple from $40,000 in '02 to $120,000 in '12. CREW Exec Dir Melanie Sloan in the report said, "With increasing scrutiny and coverage of the lasting, debilitating effects football careers can have on players’ health, the NFL has gone into damage control mode -- pumping up its lobbying spending and donations to influential members of Congress." During the '12 election cycle, the NFL's Political Action Committee known as Gridiron-PAC contributed $838,000 to federal candidates, PACs and party committees -- an increase of 26% from the '10 election cycle (CREW). View the full report here.