Patriots apologize for racial slur used in Twitter promotion

NFL

The New England Patriots apologized for a racial slur that was tweeted during a promotion to celebrate the team becoming the first NFL franchise to reach one million Twitter followers.

The team wanted to say thanks to fans for the milestone with an automated tweet by showing fans' Twitter handles on custom digital Patriots jerseys. They asked fans to retweet the account using the hashtag #1MillionPatriots.

One fan had the handle (uncensored slur) of @IHATEN-- and that handle on the back of a Patriots jersey was tweeted out by team's account and quickly went viral.

The Patriots quickly deleted that tweet.

'We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future,' the team said through their Twitter account.

We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future.

- New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 14, 2014

- Scooby Axson