Get Out: ESPN Under Fire for Sketch of White People Buying Black Players for Fantasy Football [VIDEO]
With fantasy football season underway, sports networks are trying fun ways to get viewers involved in mock drafts to help them with their fantasy roster. But ESPN took it a bit too far by hosting an auction where white people are auctioning off NFL players to the highest bidders.
Shockingly, an ESPN segment briefly showed a clip of an auction, with Odell Beckham Jr. being "sold" to a group of white people by an auctioneer. The visual of a crowd of white people bidding on a black man is jarring to say the least.
The clip quickly circulated on Twitter and was immediately denounced by activists like Shaun King and radio personality Ebro Darden. Other people have pointed out that the clip above has been taken out of context. Apparently, auction drafts are a very real thing in the fantasy football world and white players are also sold as well.
ESPN did issue the following statement:
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."