ESPN Roasted For Getting Duped into Televising Football Game Featuring Fake High School With the Initials ‘BS’

Brandon ContesAug 31st, 2021, 10:27 am
 
ESPN

Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for ESPN

The curious case of Bishop Sycamore continuous to baffle everyone, especially ESPN who is left wondering how they allowed this to happen.

A high school football game was nationally televised Sunday on ESPN featuring renowned powerhouse IMG Academy against a team you never heard of – Bishop Sycamore. That’s because the school doesn’t actually exist. The result was a blowout, with Bishop Sycamore getting dangerously beat 58-0.

IMG annually sends double-digit recruits into Power Five football programs and Bishop Sycamore duped everyone into believing they also featured a dozen Division 1 prospects on their roster. The contest was booked by Paragon Marketing, but as it turns out, not only was Bishop Sycamore lying about their Division 1 level talent, they didn’t even have a full roster of high school aged athletes.

Early in the game, the broadcasters quickly realized not only was this contest not a fair fight, but something was off with Bishop Sycamore after being unable to verify the school’s roster.

ESPN issued a statement, essentially passing the blame to Paragon for allowing an illegitimate high school to be featured and embarrassed on their network’s Geico High School Football Kickoff event.

“We regret that this happened and have discussed it with Paragon, which secured the matchup and handles the majority of our high school event scheduling. They have ensured us that they will take steps to prevent this kind of situation from happening moving forward.”

Basic vetting by ESPN or Paragon could have avoided this scandal, considering Bishop Sycamore was in the middle of playing two games in three days – which is unheard of for organized football at any level. The school went 0-6 last season, scoring 42 points and giving up 227.

Their head coach allegedly has an active arrest warrant and most of the team’s roster are junior college dropouts, with some of them over the age of 20. Bishop Sycamore has reportedly never been a legitimate high school and yes – as many people have pointed out, their initials are B.S.

The Worldwide Leader in Sports has egg on their face for being duped by a fake school, but the lack of catching on to any of the obvious signs that something wasn’t right with Bishop Sycamore has everyone roasting ESPN for their lack of diligence.

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