After announcing in July 2021 that it would change its nickname to “Guardians” this year, Cleveland has gone through a whole regular season, is now in the second round of the playoffs and ESPN still can’t get their name right. On Friday, ESPN showed a graphic stating that the “Indians” would be playing the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday.
The blunder came after the Mets-Padres game when ESPN flashed the graphic to promote Saturday’s playoff coverage of the Tampa Bay-Cleveland playoff series. The fact that it said “Rays vs. Indians” will make it a memorable sight.
Twitter erupted in response to the error, and viewers were quick to jump on ESPN for its error. One of the best came from a Tweet asking “when did the Indians come back?”
Also, football analyst Joshua Perry tweeted, “Just saw a Rays vs Indians graphic. Graphics producer gotta tighten up.”
Yet another person asked “what year is it?”
Ummm ... pic.twitter.com/5WNrNUXu8e
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) October 8, 2022
The vast majority of sports fans – including native Americans – support the use of Indian nicknames for sports teams. No matter, Cleveland made that decision months ago, and the Guardians have a full season under their belt.
It shouldn’t be too much to ask the so-called “worldwide leader in sports” to know what its’ talking about. Given ESPN’s polarizing politics, it’s not likely many people will sympathize with the network for this error.
Paul Dolan, owner of the team that was also known unofficially as the “Tribe,” made the name change in response to the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in 2020. The “Indians” had previously distanced themselves from their smiling Chief Wahoo logo, and an appropriate logo now would have the good chief doing a belly laugh.
It’s also interesting to note that the Indians drew more fans with a losing team last year than the Guardians did with a winning record this year.
If Cleveland had not gone woke and politically correct and not changed its name, it’s very possible the team would have drawn more fan support this year. The franchise would not have come under heavy criticism for the name change, and ESPN would not have gotten so confused on the team’s actual nickname.
Let’s just say the Guardians’ owner caused more trouble than a name change was worth. ESPN can vouch for that, too
