ESPN Vice President Burke Magnus addressed the backlash against his company for not airing the national anthem before the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2, a day after a terrorist truck attack in New York. -Orléans which killed 14 people.
Magnus called the failure to play the national anthem “a huge mistake,” blaming employees who worked in the Bristol, Conn., office at the time.
“There are a group of people in Bristol who have just made a huge mistake, it was human error, it happens. I don’t want to downplay it at all,” Magnus said. “It was just a horrible mistake made by a group of really well-meaning people who feel terrible about it.”
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The national anthem is played before the 2024 Sugar Bowl between the Texas Longhorns and the Washington Huskies at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. (Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports)
Magnus also said the circumstances of the match, since it was delayed a day after the Jan. 1 attack, affected the schedule and timing of those working on the broadcast.
“Nothing was normal the next day, including our programming,” Magnus said. “I could give you a whole host of reasons why this was not a normal circumstance,” he said.
Magnus insisted the company did not make a deliberate decision not to broadcast the national anthem.
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Authorities patrol Bourbon Street as it reopens in New Orleans on January 2, 2024. (Kat Ramirez for PK Press Club Digital)
“The idea that it was intentional or that we were trying to avoid acknowledging what was a horrible situation in New Orleans was really misplaced. It was just a mistake that we feel very bad about and, by the way, we should be held accountable,” he said.
“Our timing was disrupted. We were in a commercial break when the anthem came on, it just wasn’t good in any way and not up to our standards,” he said.
The lack of broadcast of the anthem was compounded by the decision to also broadcast a controversial video message from Tom Wilson, the CEO of Allstate, which is the corporate sponsor of the Sugar Bowl.
Tom Wilson, chairman and CEO of Allstate Corp. (Misha Friedman/Bloomberg/File)
In the video, Wilson suggests that Americans have an “addiction to divisions” and must “accept people’s imperfections and differences.” Many fans insisted they would cancel their Allstate insurance plans after the video was released. Allstate later removed the video from its social media accounts.
Initial backlash against the ESPN broadcast prompted the network to air the national anthem from the Sugar Bowl later in the week on a Thursday edition of “SportsCenter.”
Still, many fans considered the channel’s move too late at this point. The network also made sure to air the national anthem before the Jan. 9 Orange Bowl between Penn State and Notre Dame.
The company then broadcast a prayer before the Cotton Bowl game between Ohio State and Texas on January 10.
