National Football League

DeAndre Hopkins claims NFL fined him for wearing Kanye West's Yeezy cleats

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:15 p.m. ET

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Dan Carson

Kanye West debuted his new line of Yeezy football cleats last week with the help of Broncos linebacker Von Miller and Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who rocked pairs of the exclusive kicks in public ahead of their Week 1 matchups.

The shoes—the Yeezy 350 and 750—were well-received among sneaker fans. The NFL league office, however, doesn't appear to have been a huge fan.

According to Houston Chronicle's Aaron Wilson, Hopkins told reporters at a press conference on Thursday that he's been fined by the NFL for wearing West's cleats in-game against the Chicago Bears.

This isn't particularly surprising given the league's rich history of guarding its sponsors space within the game. Existing deals with shoe brands limit what athletes can and cannot wear during the televised game, which is why Miller wore the Yeezy cleats for warm-up and changed out into his team-issue Adidas for the game.

Now, you're probably wondering, "Hey, aren't those the same company?" And the answer to that is "Why yes they are! But that doesn't matter due to strict wording in arcane contracts between the league and its sponsors that are kept in vaults beneath the Pentagon and are worth more than our collective lives."

We'll leave the parsing there, because Shoe Law is as leathery and dense as it is severe, and I can't pretend to know where to begin unraveling it.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the shoes, DeAndre. They're already sold out everywhere.

Dan is on Twitter. Worth it? Worth it.

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