Watching last night’s New York Yankees rout over the Boston Red Sox was joyous for fans of the home team and painful for supporters of the visitors. But there was one moment which was difficult to consume for people on both sides of this rivalry.
Before cutting to commercial, the graphics team on the FOX Sports broadcast placed their Baseball Night in America logo directly in the middle of the World Trade Center Memorial site. They also put the Red Sox logo in the space where the north tower once stood, prior to 9/11. This supplemented the Yankees logo in the space where the south tower once stood. Have a look:
Can someone tell ?@FOXSports? never to do this again? Beyond offensive. pic.twitter.com/Jf7D8DXLKf
— Carol Eggers (@ceggersmidwest) July 17, 2022
And in this tweet, you can see it in real time. Hard to believe that
1. anyone who works in media production would think this was a good idea and
2. this terrible concept passed all levels of quality and standards checks.
Here it is as aired pic.twitter.com/pmXpQIWi0E
— Jacob (@jmmccarthy2002) July 17, 2022
Major League Baseball is extremely Draconian and overly hands-on when it comes to controlling their messaging, and their rights holders obviously know that. This was extremely offensive, as this site is very hallowed ground, and a place for solemnity and reflection. It’s not a spot to hawk a baseball game broadcast, and it’s even dumber on the part of FOX to market it to someone who is already watching.
In this photo, you can see what is actually at the 9/11 World Trade Center memorial, a somber waterfall built into the foundations of the buildings that stood proudly for 28 years. The names of the victims are engraved on the overlook, and as someone who has visited it, twice, I can tell you the feeling there is the polar opposite of the atmosphere at a MLB game.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum commemorates the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six.
The Executive Producer at FOX Sports, who let this egregious offense get to air, obviously has zero clue about what happened on 9/11 and about what stands at the site of the atrocity today.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and he co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast, part of Edge of the Crowd Network. Follow him and the website on Twitter and Instagram.
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