The Indianapolis Colts have apologized for a video announcing their schedule for the upcoming NFL season.
The Colts’ video was a spoof of the video game Minecraft, and in a section depicting their season-opener against the Dolphins they mocked Miami receiver Tyreek Hill. A dolphin with Hill’s No 10 jersey is seen swimming before being stopped by a Coast Guard boat, an apparent reference to the player’s traffic stop before the opening game of last season. The arrest provoked controversy after officers forcibly removed Hill from his car and threw him to the ground. Hill later said the officers “beat the dog out of me” during the stop.
Traffic citations against Hill were later dropped, but the player and his agent called for some of the officers to be fired. Hill’s teammate Calais Campbell – who drove by the scene and stopped in an effort to play peacemaker – was also handcuffed by police during the incident.
Minecraft is the most popular video game of all time, with over 200m active players per month and a host of awards to its name. The title’s intellectual property was purchased for $2.5bn by Microsoft in 2014.
The Colts deleted the clip shortly after it was published to their social media channels, at least partly because the Colts did not clear rights with Microsoft.
“We removed our schedule release video because it exceeded our rights with Microsoft and included an insensitive clip involving Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill. We sincerely apologize to Microsoft and Tyreek,” the Colts said in a statement on Thursday.
The Los Angeles Chargers also produced a Minecraft video for their schedule release, but said they had received permission from Microsoft.
