Michigan State Drops Ball, Apologizes For Putting Adolf Hitler On Its Jumbotron During Football Game

For major, ostensibly politically neutral organizations like college football programs, it's generally a good idea to not show a giant portrait of Adolf Hitler on the jumbotron in a massive stadium.

Michigan State University learned this lesson the hard way after it showed a stadium of Spartans fans a giant picture of Hitler last Saturday in the team's home game against Michigan University.

This fairly big oopsie was indeed an accident, as Michigan State explained in an apology after the game. MSU spokesperson Matt Larson said:

“MSU is aware that inappropriate content by a third-party source was displayed on the video board prior to the start of tonight’s football game. We are deeply sorry for the content that was displayed, as this is not representative of our institutional values. MSU will not be using the third-party source going forward and will implement stronger screening and approval procedures for all videoboard content in the future.”

It appears the school had been streaming YouTube videos from "The Quiz Channel," which has simple trivia quizzes about a variety of topics. One of the questions concerned Adolf Hitler's birth country, leading to a bizarre moment in which the leader of the Third Reich was seen smiling upon a football stadium of Michigan State fans.

According to the channel's creator, Floris Van Pallandt, Michigan State had also not asked him if they could stream his channel during games.

While there's not exactly a "good" time to bring up Hitler to a stadium of football fans, Saturday's gaffe had particularly bad timing, as the killing of a Detroit rabbi had occurred just hours prior.

The confluence of that event with the rising tensions in America amid the Israel-Hamas conflict stoked fears that whoever was in charge of the video production at Michigan State was promoting anti-semitism.

Still, the so-called "Hitlergate" may not have been Michigan State's biggest "L" for the day, as the team lost 49-0 to their biggest rivals.