ESPN's fantasy football “slave auction” has drawn an apology from the sports network, saying the segment on football fans competing to get the best players for their make-believe teams suffered from poor optics.
The 28-hour auction, which aired on Monday, saw players of all colors “sold off,” but many viewers noticed the preponderance of black players and took offense, saying it resembled an actual slave auction too closely.
NFL’s Odell Beckham Jr was among players auctioned off and among those who found the segment offensive.
He posted a clip of the auction on Twitter, simply captioning it “speechless.”
Shaun King, leader of the Black Lives Matter movement, called for and promptly got an apology from ESPN.
He posted a video clip of the auction on Twitter.
In a statement to USA Today, ESPN said auction drafts were “a common part of fantasy football, and ESPN’s segments replicated an auction draft with a diverse slate of top professional football players.”
However, the channel admitted that, “without that context, we understand the optics could be portrayed as offensive, and we apologize.”
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