NFL ditches ‘End Racism’ slogan on Super Bowl field

The NFL won’t be calling to “end racism” at Sunday’s Super Bowl in New Orleans. The league announced it wouldn’t stencil the call to action in a Superdome end zone ahead of the showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. 

The slogan had appeared in an end zone for each of the past three Super Bowls. The NFL said it would instead write “Choose Love” underneath the goalposts. 

“The Super Bowl is often a snapshot in time, and the NFL is in a unique position to capture and lift the imagination of the country,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said. “Choose love is appropriate to use as our country has endured in recent weeks wildfires in Southern California, the terrorist attack here in New Orleans, the plane and helicopter crash near our nation’s capital and the plane crash in Philadelphia.”

The league announced the decision on Tuesday, the same day White House officials confirmed that President Trump would attend the game. 

The move, paired with the president’s planned attendance, infuriated some liberally minded commentators. 

“Guess what @nfl? If you’re against ‘Stop Racism,’ that means you’re FOR … Racism,” former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann, a longtime critic of Mr. Trump, wrote on X. “F—- you and every one of your advertisers.”

The “End Racism” markings didn’t appear in every NFL game. The Eagles painted the slogan on their field for this season’s NFC title game against the Washington Commanders, but the Chiefs opted for “Choose Love” and “It Takes All of Us” in their last game against the Buffalo Bills.

Despite removing the racism-focused slogan from the Super Bowl, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday stood by the league’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

“We got into diversity efforts because we felt like it was the right thing for the National Football League, and we’re going to continue those efforts because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, we’ve proven ourselves that it does make the NFL better,” he said. “We’re not in this because it’s a trend to get in or a trend to get out of it.”