ESPN apologizes for fantasy football 'auction' segment
ESPN apologized for a segment during its fantasy football programming marathon which depicted a fantasy football auction but drew criticism on social media for its resemblance to a slave auction.
During one of its fantasy football shows ESPN showed a segment that had an auctioneer putting a player up for bid and people in a crowd bidding on him. Auction drafts are popular in fantasy football.
Soooooo ESPN just did an "auction" sketch pic.twitter.com/zvezCItems
— Jᴀsᴏɴ (@rjasonscales) August 14, 2017
After heavy criticism throughout the day on Tuesday, ESPN issued an apology.
“Auction drafts are a common part of fantasy football, and ESPN’s segments replicated an auction draft with a diverse slate of top professional football players. Without that context, we understand the optics could be portrayed as offensive, and we apologize,” ESPN said in a statement to multiple outlets including USA Today.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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