On Sunday night, the Sacramento Kings lost Game 7 to the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors. While the Warriors got the best of their Northern California rival, the Kings had a lot to be proud of this season.
The Kings broke the longest playoff drought in the “big four” American sports leagues and did so in style, winning the Pacific Division and qualifying as a three-seed. ESPN celebrated the Kings by posting a tweet displaying their highlights with a graphic depicting the “Sacramento” skyline and the purple beam that lights up after wins.
Unfortunately, there were a couple of issues with a graphic posted on Twitter Sunday night. Journalist Matthew Keys pointed out two inaccuracies where it showed ESPN using San Francisco as a backdrop to depict the Sacramento Kings. Mainly, ESPN used a pic of the Golden Gate Bridge instead of the Tower Bridge, and that the Salesforce Tower is what the beam is coming out of.
Hey, @ESPN, a couple of problems with your graphic:
1.) That bridge is the Golden Gate, not the Tower Bridge. The Golden Gate is in San Francisco.
2.) You have the Beam coming out of the Salesforce Tower, which…is also in San Francisco. #SacramentoProud https://t.co/BHgDOIYiI0
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) May 1, 2023
This capped off a rather unfortunate Sunday for ESPN. Earlier that day, the network used stock footage of the Twin Towers during the Miami Heat-New York game on ABC.
While this wasn’t as bad, and while it was very likely a mistake, it doesn’t bode well considering how the national media treat the Kings. The Kings didn’t have many nationally televised regular season games, and they weren’t the talk of the playoffs. At one point, Charles Barkley wanted the Kings to replace the Lakers on nationally televised games because the Kings were playing much better than the Lakers, and the Lakers were only really on TV because they’re the Lakers and they have LeBron James.
Imagining San Francisco as Sacramento, even as a simple mistake, isn’t going to help with the implied disrespect.
