College football viewers in metropolitan areas across the country may have noticed recent advertising spots recruiting law enforcement officers to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The ads are part of a Trump administration initiative to ramp up deportations of undocumented immigrants. “‘You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe,’ the narrator says, as images of the cities targeted and ICE agents arresting people move across the screen. ‘But in sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free,'” a PBS report about the commercials says.
The same report outlines that ICE has spent $6.5 million on airing these advertisements in cities that the Trump administration deems uncooperative with the deportation initiatives. Many of those spots have come during college football games.
As Puck’s John Ourand reports, a 30-second advertisement during “big primetime college football games” costs around $300,000. Ourand continues, “Because these are one-off ad buys and obviously not part of a general election, networks are charging top dollar for these spots, sources told me. (By law, networks have to give candidates for public office the lowest rate that was sold in a particular game—a rule that doesn’t apply here.) Once sold, network ad sales execs send the commercials to their legal departments to make sure they pass all the standards-and-practices checks they have in place.”
Fans have taken notice of the commercials both because of the message ICE is sending viewers through its stark imagery and narration, but also because taxpayer money is directly funding these spots during some of the most expensive programming to purchase ads against in all of television.
U.S. taxpayers have shelled out $6.5 million so far for ICE TV ads during college football games (via John Ourand’s Puck newsletter) pic.twitter.com/ULESduAsLI
— Nick Field (@nick_field90) October 14, 2025
It would not be the first time the U.S. government has allocated taxpayer funds to initiatives with which many Americans disagree. However, in the backdrop of a federal government shutdown, with many government agencies going without funding, spending millions of dollars on ICE recruitment ads during college football games isn’t exactly great optics.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.