MLB suspends Papa John’s promotion after racial slur

Major League Baseball has suspended the Papa Slams promotion after a racial slur made by Papa John’s founder and chairman John Schnatter has been made public by Forbes.

The relationship between Major League Baseball and Papa John’s began in 2016 when baseball started dubbing grand slams “Papa Slams.” Each grand slam allowed baseball fans to get 40 percent off their order at Papa John’s the next day by using a Papa Slam online coupon code. Last night’s grand slam by Greg Bird, in the Yankees’ 9-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles, was not celebrated as a Papa Slam.

At first, Schnatter tried to downplay this and previous controversies by stating that Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC, called black people the N-word. The pizza chain is under scrutiny after founder John Schnatter admitted to and apologized for using the N-word in a May training session, an event that became public Wednesday. As a result, Schnatter announced his resignation as the company’s chairman late Wednesday night.

Various Major League teams have their own promotions with Papa John’s. Those deals are unaffected by the decision of MLB. Each team can decide whether it will continue the cooperation with the company or not.

Schnatter stepped down as Papa John’s CEO after another controversy when he blamed the company’s declining sales on protests in the NFL during the national anthem.

After the N-word incident during the PR session in May became public, Schnatter issued the following apology: “News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true. Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”

A typical case of “Repentance always comes too late.”