The league always is looking for ways to spice up the presentation of their games in order to keep their edge as the most popular sport in the United States.
One of the gimmicks this year was the introduction of something called “Colour Rush” to their nationally televised Thursday night games. Beginning last week, and for the next three Thursday games, each team wears a complete uniform – shirts, pants, socks and shoes – in one bright colour.
For the debut, the Buffalo Bills were dressed in brilliant scarlet, while the New York Jets were in a glaring green.
The splash of colour presumably pleases the eye. But if the idea were to attract more viewers, they inadvertently lost some – those who are red-green colour blind. Those people could not tell the difference between the two teams.
More than 10 million Americans (mostly males) are believed to be affected. Judging by the reaction on social media, quite a few were watching, with much difficulty. One of them was former player Lawrence Tynes, who tweeted: “This game is going to be hard to follow.”
The next day, an NFL spokesman conceded officials had not accounted for the colour-blind when they put their fashion schemes together. But they will in the future.
Oh, the irony.
The league that has the strictest uniform code in North American sports and fines players weekly for slight transgressions, fumbled on their very first “Colour Rush”.
sports@thenational.ae
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