ESPN VP admits not airing national anthem before Sugar Bowl after terror attack was an 'enormous mistake'
2025-01-17
Category: sports

ESPN Vice President Burke Magnus addressed the backlash against his company for failing to broadcast the national anthem ahead of the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2, one day after the New Orleans terror truck attack that killed 14 people. Magnus called the failure to broadcast the national anthem an "enormous mistake," blaming employees who were working in the Bristol, Connecticut, office at the time. "There's a group of people in Bristol who just made an enormous mistake, it was a human error, it happens. I don't want to minimize it by any stretch," Magnus said. "That was just a horrible error that was made by a group of really well-intentioned people who feel terrible about it." CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM  Magnus also said the circumstances of the game, since it was delayed a day after the attack took place early on Jan. 1, affected the scheduling and timing of the people working on the broadcast.&nbsp; "Nothing was normal about that next day, including our programming lineup," Magnus said. "I could give you a whole host of reasons why it wasn't the normal circumstance," he said. Magnus insisted that the company did not make a deliberate decision to not broadcast the national anthem.&nbsp; EAGLES COACH CALLS OUT 'LAZY' TAKES ABOUT AJ BROWN AFTER HE'S CAUGHT READING BOOK DURING GAME  "The notion that it was somehow intentional or we were trying to avoid acknowledging what was a horrific situation in New Orleans was really misplaced. It was just a mistake that we feel terrible about and, by the way, we should be held to account for," he said.&nbsp; "Our timing got fouled up. We happened to be in commercial break when the anthem happened, it was just not good by any measuring stick and not up to our standards," he said.&nbsp; The failure to air the anthem was compounded by the decision to also air a controversial video message from Tom Wilson, the CEO of Allstate, which is the Sugar Bowl's corporate sponsor. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP  In the video, Wilson suggested Americans have an "addiction to divisiveness" and must "accept people's imperfections and differences." Many fans insisted they would cancel their Allstate insurance plans after the video aired. Allstate later deleted the video from its social media accounts. The initial backlash to ESPN's broadcast prompted the network to air the Sugar Bowl's national anthem later in the week during a Thursday edition of "SportsCenter." Still, many fans considered the network's gesture too late at that point. The network also made sure to air the national anthem ahead of the Jan. 9 Orange Bowl between Penn State and Notre Dame.&nbsp; The company then aired a prayer ahead of the Cotton Bowl game between Ohio State and Texas on Jan. 10. Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.&nbsp;