ESPN apologized to the New England Patriots in the wee morning hours on Thursday, however it wasn't for its infamous Deflategate report.
"SportsCenter" anchor Steve Levy spent under half a minute just after midnight apologizing for referencing a since-retracted 2002 report that the Patriots had made a video recording of the St. Louis Rams prior to Super Bowl XXXVI.
The Patriots, a team widely vilified across the sports world, took note of the apology, tweeting it to its fans.
"Despite [the 2002] correction being issued three months after the initial report, the damage had been done. People believed that the Patriots filmed the Rams walkthrough, and that was that,"
CBS News explained.
"In fact, ESPN ran with the filmed walkthrough story multiple times in recent weeks, displaying the 'news' on the bottom of the screen during discussions about DeflateGate."
SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm also said in recent weeks that, "Some would say that the filming of the practices earlier 'that that does qualify as cheating,' which is certainly something that is part of the Patriots history."
Storm later clarified her comments, but did not apologize.
In regard to the much more recent Deflategate controversy that led to Tom Brady's suspension — currently being challenged in court — many say that ESPN should apologize for that too.
"New England Patriots fans have been waiting for an ESPN correction that’s never come,"
USA Today wrote this week.
"By now, everyone, even the NFL and the reporter himself, has acknowledged that Chris Mortensen’s story about 11 of the 12 Pats footballs from the AFC championship being 'inflated significantly below the NFL’s requirements' with some under-inflated by more than 2 PSI was slightly off, at best, and wrong, at worst."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.