It’s been fairly common to see hometown heroes, soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, honored at professional football and baseball games at stadiums across the country. The public recognition seems appropriate at a time when only a small percentage of American families are directly impacted by overseas conflict.

The feel-good moments recognizing American soldiers and veterans don’t feel quite the same now that it’s been reported that the teams were paid by the Defense Department for the appearances. A Senate investigation by Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain found the Defense Deparment paid $53 million to professional baseball, football, hockey and basketball teams as well as NASCAR. The contracts were part of marketing and advertising budgets, and defenders of the program insist it helped with recuitment.

But for Sens. McCain and Flake, both Republicans representing Arizona, and for millions of other Americans, the idea and image of what’s being called “paid patriotism” is unseemly.

The initial report was released in May, but more details on the program were included in a 145-page report released last week. The expanded report found Defense Department contracts with, and payments to, 10 NFL teams, 10 MLB teams, eight NBA teams, six NHL teams, eight soccer teams and NASCAR.

NASCAR, the largest recipient of paid patriotism money, received $1.56 million in 2015. The Atlanta Falcons topped the team list, being paid $879,000 over four years.

Between the time of the initial report and the expanded report, Congress made changes to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2016 that prohibits the contracts to sports teams and asking leagues and teams to donate the money to charitable groups supporting veterans.

The Department of Defense and the NFL disagree with the characterization of the payments.

According to Flake, the investigation also revealed that the Department of Defense did not know, or would not reveal, how much it was spending on such efforts and where the payments were going. Flake said his group’s first request for information resulted in only 62 percent of the 122 contracts eventually revealed. He went on to say that there was never any analysis of the paid appearances at sporting events to see if they actually did help recruitment.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote a letter Nov. 2 promising the league will conduct its own audit of all contracts with military branches and the National Guard.

The Defense Department should never have paid millions of dollars for these patriotic, feel-good moments at sporting events. And the professional sports teams should have never accepted money for honoring active-duty soldiers and veterans.

Every professional sports team and NASCAR — most multibillion-dollar organizations — should donate the money from their “paid patriotism” programs to charities helping veterans.