Christmas in November? The NFL debuted its Color Rush campaign on Thursday, Nov. 12, when the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets, clad in solid red and green uniforms, squared off at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. And while some people noticed a Christmas-like, festive playing field, some other people — who are colorblind — were not impressed.
Football fans took to Twitter to express their frustrations.
“If you are colorblind like me this @NFL game is going to be hard to follow,” former New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes tweeted during the game.
According to the National Eye Institute, 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women worldwide with Northern European ancestry are colorblind. An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from the condition. Red-green colorblindness is the most common, making it difficult to distinguish between the players’ red and green uniforms.
The Color Rush campaign consists of four Thursday night games between now and the end of the football season. While traditionally one team would wear a dark jersey and the other white, now both teams will wear solid colors.
“The Color Rush jerseys are a test for four games this season, the first of which was last night,” the NFL said in a statement on Friday, Nov. 13. “We did test jerseys this summer on field and on television. The standard television test did not account for color blindness for fans at home that became apparent last night. We will enhance our testing to include a color blindness analysis to better address this issue in the future.”
Tell Us: What do you think of the jerseys?
