An epic day every year in the gaming industry as well as each NFL season build up is the release of the next version of the Madden Football game. There’s hype about which player will been on the cover, new game features, and the next soundtrack.
This year, EA Sports has run straight into the NFL’s national anthem debate with an edit they did to the Madden NFL 19 release. The video game giant removed former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s name from a song on the soundtrack
Rapper YG’s song “Big Bank,” which features Big Sean, references the former San Francisco 49er. On the soundtrack’s version of the song, a line from Sean’s verse is missing: “Feed me to the wolves, now I lead the pack and s - - t. You boys all cap, I’m more Colin Kaepernick.”
The former quarterback caused major controversy in 2016 when he took a knee during the national anthem in protest of violence at the hands of police against black communities.
“We made an unfortunate mistake with our ‘Madden NFL’ soundtrack,” EA said in a statement issued Thursday. “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.”
They went on to say, “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.”
