A Texas professor claimed that legendary NFL coach and broadcaster John Madden's video game franchise, "Madden NFL," has "dehumanized black athletes" and helped develop a digital "plantation."
Andrew McGregor, a history professor at Dallas College, also alleged that Madden "profited off of Black athletic labor and glamorized the violence inherent in the game."
The professor's comments were made Tuesday, the same day that news broke that Madden had died at the age of 85.
And while McGregor, who is White, has since locked his Twitter account, social media users saved screenshots of several of his posts.
"I have a lot of opinions on John Madden," McGregor said in one tweet. "The creation of the Madden video game was not a great development for the U.S. It further glamorized violence and dehumanized black athletes, helping to establish plantation cosplay that has grown worse in the era of fantasy football."
In another post, he wrote that the video game franchise "distanced the reality of the violent sport from fans, and transformed human behaviors into artificial numbers and simulations" and that it "glamorized athletes, using their name for profits while encouraging fans to disregard the humanity." He added in the post that Madden "built a digital plantation."
“You see this number here? That’s how many people retweeted it and this number over here— that’s your likes. You can see we got 9, and we got 50. But this number right here in the middle… 184. BOOM! That’s a ratio, Pat” pic.twitter.com/Nzz9uBqndF
— Jacson A. Bevens (@JacsonBevens) December 29, 2021
But in a 2017 tweet, McGregor expressed a liking for the "Madden NFL" series.
"The fake kneel down is the exact kind of play I would have used against my brother in Madden," McGregor wrote at the time. "It would have perfectly complemented my fake punt offense."
A Dallas College spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that McGregor's social media posts do not reflect the views of the school.
"The views of professor McGregor are not those of Dallas College, and comments made via his personal Twitter account do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Dallas College," the spokesperson said.
The "Madden NFL" series is developed by EA Sports, a video game publisher that Madden had been associated with since 1988. NFL players have long coveted being the cover athlete for the upcoming edition of the game.
Madden first became a notable figure among NFL fans as a young head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969-1978, winning a Super Bowl following the 1976 season. He then served as a broadcaster, during which time he was known for highlighting players who had not received much media attention, such as offensive and defensive lineman, who had often been overshadowed by athletes playing skill positions like quarterback and running back.
Madden's Raiders teams of the late 1960s and 1970s included a number of African-American star players, such as Gene Upshaw, Art Shell, Cliff Branch and Jack Tatum.
Upshaw later became head of the NFL Players Association while Shell went on to make history as the first African-American head coach in the NFL’s modern era, coaching the Raiders.
The Raiders, previously also being known as the Los Angeles Raiders (1982-1994), currently play home games in Las Vegas as the Las Vegas Raiders.
McGregor's tweets are just the latest instance in which someone attempted to link the NFL or its affiliates to slavery, with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick earlier this year comparing the NFL Draft to a slave auction in a Netflix documentary.
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