News/Commentary

Army demands millions back from Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson after promotion deal backfires bigly

August 1, 2024 | | Print Article

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s deal to promote the U.S. Army in exchange for money has backfired mightily.

According to Military.com, earlier this year the Army inked an $11 million deal with Johnson’s United Football League (UFL).

The deal said that Johnson was to use his social media reach to promote the Army with at least five social media posts.

“The Army valued each social media post at $1 million, service documents show, and it was expecting five of them,” according to Military.com. “But Johnson did not fulfill his end of the deal — making only two of the five social media posts, Army documents show.”

Because Johnson didn’t do as demanded, the Army now wants $6 million of the $11 million returned to it.

It doesn’t help that the few posts Johnson did publish did nothing to entice recruitment and may have actually unincentivized recruitment.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The high-dollar, high-profile deal likely didn’t lead to a single new Army recruit and may possibly have had a negative impact on finding new enlistments,” according to Military.com.

“The UFL deal was so catastrophic, it led to a projected loss of 38 enlistments, an internal review of the plan shows. Army planners use various metrics to judge whether time and money could be better spent in other efforts, and the effort and resources spent on the UFL were seen by the service as a net negative for recruiting,” the site noted.

Ideally, the deal should have never gone through, as Army staff had warned about pursuing a partnership with the UFL.

“Service officials said the financial burden was way too high and viewership was too low, and even the most optimistic estimation showed the partnership would not yield many recruits,” Military.com notes.

Speaking with the outlet, a senior Army marketing official said that the deal bore many similarities to another failed deal in which the National Guard had given NASCAR $88 million for recruitment efforts, only to have zero new recruits join the Army.

ADVERTISEMENT

So why did the UFL deal even happen? Because of Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, who reportedly pushed for it.

The last time Johnson posted anything to Instagram about the Army was in April.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Dwayne Johnson (@therock)

The good news for Johnson is there are no hard feelings.

“In terms of The Rock, it’s unfortunate he was pulled away at a time when we expected him to be present with us to create content for his social media channels,” Col. Dave Butler, a spokesperson for George, told Military.com in a statement. “But we’re working with the UFL to rebalance the contract. The Rock remains a good partner to the Army.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Blame for the deal falling apart has partly been placed on “inexperienced” UFL staff.

“UFL lack of experience liaising between brand/networks was very apparent during planning [the] process, and created a significant amount of additional work,” an internal Army document reviewed by Military.com reads.

“The internal report added that Army marketing officials have a ‘lack of confidence’ future deals with the UFL can be successful,” according to Military.com. “Some officials within the Army also expressed concerns behind the scenes that the UFL was not a cost-effective way of reaching potential recruits.”

“The UFL deal cost about half of what the service spent on the NCAA, but viewership on an average NCAA game is roughly 10 times that of the UFL, according to the Army’s own internal metrics,” the reporting continued.

Responding to the reporting, critics wondered why the Army ever went through with the deal, especially when it’s so “cheap” about bonuses.

ADVERTISEMENT

Look:

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles