The NFL will remove the words “End Racism” from the end zones at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday, the NFL confirmed to NBC News.
Instead, the field will have stencils of the phrase “Choose Love” as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement on Tuesday.
Throughout the 2024-2025 season, NFL teams have advertised pro-diversity slogans at their stadiums and on their uniforms. The field stencils have been a part of the league since 2020, McCarthy said.
“Teams have used on the field this year ‘Vote,’ ‘End Racism,’ ‘Stop Hate,’ and ‘Choose Love.’ This is part of the NFL’s Inspire Change,” he said.
At their championship games on Jan. 26, the Chiefs had “Choose Love” in their end zone and the Eagles had “End Racism,” respectively.
The NFL said Tuesday that it would only have stenciling of the phrase “Choose Love.” Sunday’s game will now be the first Super Bowl since February 2021 that “End Racism” will not be included in an end zone stencil.
“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,” McCarthy said.
The NFL spokesman said that the phrase is most fitting because of tragedies the country has endured in recent weeks.
“‘Choose Love’ is appropriate to use as our country has endured in recent weeks wild fires 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,” McCarthy said.
The statement from the NFL comes the same day a White House official told NBC News that President Donald Trump will be attending the Super Bowl.
The Secret Service said in a statement that “extensive planning and coordination have been in place to ensure the safety of all attendees, players, and staff,” with security measures having been “further enhanced this year, given that this will be the first time a sitting President of the United States will attend the event.”
“The U.S. Secret Service has been on the ground for days, working in close collaboration with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, as well as the NFL, to implement a comprehensive security plan,” Anthony Guglielmi, U.S. Secret Service Chief of Communications, said.
Trump has made clear his anti-DEI stance since coming into office, signing an executive order on his first day in office to end DEI programs within federal agencies and putting employees in those programs on leave.
Following the deadly midair collision of an American Airlines plane and Army Black Hawk helicopter in the Washington, D.C., area last week — which was cited by McCarthy as one of the tragedies inspiring the “Choose Love” slogan — Trump also took aim at DEI, implying diversity policies were at fault for the disaster.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a press conference Monday that he does not think the league’s policies to promote diversity conflict with Trump’s push to eliminate DEI programs.
“Our policies have been designed to be well within the law, well within the practice,” Goodell said at the press conference. “There are no quotas in our system. This is about opening that funnel and bringing the best talent into the NFL.”
The commissioner added that the NFL’s policies are consistent “with the current administration as well as the last administration.”
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt 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, I think we’ve proven ourselves that it does make the NFL better,” Goodell said.
Meriam Bouarrouj, Peter Alexander and Kelly O’Donnell contributed.
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