Hours after EA Sports and “Madden NFL” received backlash for omitting Colin Kaepernick’s name from a song, the company issued an apology.
Kaepernick’s name was edited out of the song “Big Bank” by YG which features Big Sean. Big Sean makes a reference to Colin Kaepernick on the song with the lyric, “You boys all cap, I’m more Colin Kaepernick.” The name “Colin Kaepernick” is edited out of the song.
Big Sean blasted EA Sports by posting on Twitter, “It’s disappointing and appalling @NFL & @EA took @Kaepernick7’s name out of my verse on Big Bank for Madden 19, like it was a curse word. When he’s not a curse, he’s a gift! Nobody from my team approved any of this.”
YG also posted a video where he kneeled while asking for EA Sports to apologize to Kaepernick.
EA Sports issued a statement and said they made a mistake in removing Kaepernick’s name from the song.
“We made an unfortunate mistake with our Madden NFL soundtrack. Members of our team misunderstood the fact that while we don’t have rights to include Colin Kaepernick in the game, this doesn’t affect soundtracks. We messed up, and the edit should never have happened. We will make it right, with an update to Madden NFL 19 on Aug. 6 that will include the reference again. We meant no disrespect, and we apologize to Colin, to YG and Big Sean, to the NFL, to all of their fans and our players for this mistake.”
The NFL attempted to ban players from kneeling following Donald Trump’s decision to malign the players. Kaepernick was the first player to kneel in protest of police brutality and the killings of unarmed Black men. He remains unemployed and has since been blackballed by the NFL.
