Electronic Arts said that the company "did not purposely omit Colin Kaepernick's name from a song it licensed" for the soundtrack in "Madden NFL 19," according to Darren Rovell of ESPN.com. EA in a statement said, "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" (ESPN.com, 8/2). EA said that it "would update the game" (USA TODAY, 8/3). In N.Y., Peter Sblendorio notes Kaepernick's name can be heard in the "unedited version" of the song "Big Bank" by rapper YG. Rapper Big Sean, whose line in the song references Kaepernick, said that neither he "nor anyone on his team approved EA Sports’ edits to his song." Big Sean tweeted, "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!" Kaepernick will "not appear as a player in the game unless he is signed by an NFL team" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 8/3). ESPN's Jay Williams noted he worked with EA Sports in the past and said something cannot appear in a release "if they don't have the rights to use a name in a game." Williams: "That same thing could trickle down to this song as well. A simple mistake, but they fixed it." However, NBCSN's Mike Florio said, "If you're going to remove his name from the lyrics of a song, why even use the song? Use a different song. There are thousands of songs out there" ("PFT," NBCSN, 8/3).
NOT THE FIRST TIME: Florio noted "Madden NFL 18" also "scrubbed" Kaepernick's name from a song lyric. The soundtrack for the version of game released in August '17 included "Bars of Soap" by Mike WiLL Made-It. The song includes this line: “She be hopin’ that I take a knee like Kaepernick, yes.” EA "removed the words 'like Kaepernick' from the Madden version of the song." The omission apparently "went unnoticed for months" (PROFOOTBALLTALK.com, 8/2).
