The Philadelphia Eagles kick off their 2024 season Friday, Sept. 6, in the first NFL game ever to be played in Brazil. As the Eagles prepare to face the Green Bay Packers abroad, they are facing another issue off the field here at home — tackling a problem described by the team as “counterfeit political ads.”
In multiple locations across Philly, posters have been popping up showing an image of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris holding a football and wearing an Eagles jersey, with the caption reading “Kamala – official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles.” The poster features a link to the Eagles website’s voting information section.
While the link is real, the Eagles said the poster and the endorsement are not. The team sent out a message on social media on Monday, Sept. 2, saying “We are aware counterfeit political ads are being circulated and are working with our advertising partner to have them removed.”
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The Eagles do have official partners like convenience store chain Wawa being the team’s official hoagie and Dunkin’ being the official coffee of the team. But there is no official Eagles candidate, despite what these ads say.
The affected bus shelters in the battleground state are owned by Intersection, a media company. A spokesperson for the company said in a statement that someone tampered with the shelters, replacing a paid advertisement with “unauthorized copy.”
The spokesperson said that while there are locks to prevent vandalism like this, “occasionally people find a way to unlock the ad box and insert unauthorized copy.”
The City of Philadelphia also released a statement saying, “This was not a digital breach; whomever is responsible for the illegally placed posters, broke into the securely covered shelter ad space and somehow put the posters in the space.”
The city began removing the posters Monday and will conduct a full inventory of its bus shelters. At last check, there have been at least six counterfeit ads reported across the city.
While some reports point to a Philadelphia street artist being behind the posters, that has yet to be confirmed.
