Fly, Kamala, Fly? No, the Philadelphia Eagles did not endorse Harris for president

Have the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as president? No, but fake ads showing the Eagles doing so have appeared at bus stops across Philadelphia.

A Sep. 2 Instagram reel shows a man standing near a bus stop with an ad featuring a graphic depicting Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wearing an Eagles helmet and holding a football. Text at the bottom of the ad reads, "Kamala official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles."

Text overlaying the video says, "Eagles endorse Kamala for president." 

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

But the Eagles didn’t sponsor the poster. "We are aware counterfeit political ads are being circulated and are working with our advertising partner to have them removed," the Eagles said Sept. 2 in an X statement. 

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X posts

stated on October 27, 2024 in Social media posts

Photo shows people lined up outside Madison Square Garden before an Oct. 27 rally by former President Donald Trump.

Eagles spokesperson Bob Lange told PolitiFact the team’s statement referred to the Harris bus stop ads.

An unknown person or group of people illegally replaced paid advertisements in the bus shelters with unauthorized posters, Intersection, the company that owns the bus shelters where the ads were posted, said in an email to PolitiFact.

"We note that neither the Eagles nor Intersection had anything to do with the creation or posting of this unauthorized content," the company said, adding that seven of the ads have already been removed. Intersection is surveying other bus stops for other unauthorized posters.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s question about whether it authorized the posters. But a Harris spokesperson told NBC Philadelphia that it did not purchase the ads.

It would be unusual for an NFL team to endorse a political candidate. We searched Google and the Nexis news database and found no instances of an NFL team doing so.

We rate the claim that the Eagles endorsed Kamala Harris for president False.