ESPN chose not to air the national anthem and the moment of silence ahead of Thursday’s Sugar Bowl between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and NFL legend Brett Favre is not happy about it.
The Sugar Bowl was delayed a day as a result of a terrorist attack just a mile away from the stadium that left 14 people dead and dozens more injured.
Before the game, the Sugar Bowl held a moment of silence for the victims in addition to the playing of the national anthem. However, ESPN decided not to include that portion in its coverage of the game.
A source with knowledge of the situation told The New York Post that there were “several factors” that played into the decision not to show the national anthem ahead of the game.
“‘SportsCenter,’ which had served as the pregame show due to the unusual circumstances, had wrapped on an interview with Tim Tebow and went to a commercial break before the moment of silence and returned in the middle of the anthem, ‘making it awkward to cut it’ at that moment, the source explained,” the Post reported.
“ESPN did open its broadcast of the Sugar Bowl with a prerecorded message from President Joe Biden, and play-by-play broadcaster Sean McDonough spoke about the tragedy in his open while a montage of fans, police and the city of New Orleans played on the screen.”
Regardless of the reason for the decision, Brett Favre was not happy about it.
In a post on social media, Favre expressed his outrage at the decision.
“Heard: There was no televised National Anthem for Sugar Bowl yesterday. Instead a DEI message by @Allstate CEO. Woke is a joke,” Favre said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
It’s worth noting that while the national anthem was not shown during the broadcast on ESPN, it was shown on “SEC Nation,” which airs on the ESPN-owned SEC Network and was broadcast live from the Superdome.
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