After the White House announced that President Joe Biden would invite the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the White House on Monday, February 8, the posts circulated on social media claimed that the 2021 Super Bowl champions “refused” this invitation. . This is untrue: Reuters found no credible evidence that the team refused the invitation to publish this article, and the allegation probably stems from a satirical article.
A Facebook post here has been shared more than 2,181 times, reads: ‘Super Bowl Champions refuses invitation to WH, claims WH was stolen. OK OK, SO I AM NOT CRAZY (laughing crying emojis) ”. Other posts are visible here and here.
The wording used in these posts is similar to the headline from a satirical article taterforceone.com/superbowl/ entitled ‘Superbowl Champions Refuse Invitation to’ Stolen ‘White House’ and published by the website Tater Force One, part of the “parody, satire”, and tomfoolery “network” America’s Last Line of Defense “(taterforceone.com/about-us/). In the About Us section, the page says’ everything on this site is fiction. “It’s not a lie and it’s not fake news because it’s not real. If you believe it’s real, you should have your head examined.”
On February 8, the White House said that President Joe Biden would invite the Super Bowl LV champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and last season’s NBA champions, the LA Lakers, to the White House as soon as it was safe to do so if due to COVID-19. restrictions (here).
Reuters found no credible news reports that the Buccaneers turned down the White House invitation on Tuesday, February 9th. This kind of statement would be widely reported by the media, just as when athletes had previously refused to visit the political house in the White House for political reasons. (here, here, here).
The Buccaneers Communications team did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
VERDICT
Untrue. The allegation that ‘Superbowl champions refused the invitation’ to the White House stems from an article intended as satire.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.