EA Sports apologized Thursday for deleting Colin Kaepernick’s name from songs on the soundtrack of the video game “Madden 19,” which is set to be released on Aug. 10.
A Twitter user with the handle @jeanclervil posted a video Thursday with the song “Big Bank” by rapper YG playing within the game. Like many songs on the E-rated game, several lyrics are edited out for content and profanity.
So is the quarterback’s name, which normally appears in the song in a verse performed by Big Sean. The line normally reads, “You boys all cap, I’m more Colin Kaepernick.”
Instead, the quarterback’s name was digitally removed.
EA issued a statement Thursday evening that read: “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 August 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.”
After the deletion came to light, Kaepernick’s girlfriend, radio and TV personality Nessa, retweeted @jeanclervil’s tweet and commented, “Oh!!!!! @EAMaddenNFL who told you to edit Colin’s name out???? @nfl ? @NFLPA Curious minds want to know. Thanks Jean for the info!!! If you guys see more shady stuff send it over.” (Reuters)
