The NFL and Nike combined on Thursday night to bring “Color Rush” to American football, and the marketing campaign went down like a lead balloon as some sufferers of colourblindness could not tell the sides apart .
The concept behind the promotion was to have teams take the field in unicolour kits, with jersey, pants and socks all using the same base.
What the league failed to account for was that the combination of one team all in green, one all in red, meant that to fans with red-green colourblindness the teams were virtually indistinguishable.
Here is how the teams appeared to colourblind viewers on tv.
Well there is virtually no point in watching that.
Needless to say social media was soon full of neglected fans pointing out the massive cock up.
League spokesman Brian McCarthy has responded to the issue, but suggested the solution may not necessarily be immediate.
An email to the Associated Press read:
The standard television test did not account for colorblindness for fans at home that became apparent last night. We will enhance our testing to include a colorblindness analysis to better address this issue in the future.”
The NFL ladies and gentleman, as proactive as ever.
