During breaking news coverage on Scott Van Pelt’s late-night edition of SportsCenter last weekend, the show displayed an image of Minnesota Vikings player Myles Price in place of the deceased Rondale Moore.
Van Pelt and the production crew fixed the mistake for the re-airs of that night’s SportsCenter, while anchor David Lloyd offered an apology on-air Sunday.
Moore died at 25 of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound after a memorable career with Purdue and the Arizona Cardinals.
In a segment on the SVPod on Monday, Van Pelt offered an apology for the mistake and to both Price and Moore’s family.
“I’ve always said about the show that I do, it’s not my show, it’s our show. Because it’s our show. And it’s a group of people. And it’s a group of people that work their butts off and do an awesome job … and put us in a great position to try to do the show we do,” Van Pelt explained.
“I don’t do the graphics. But I’ll say in this case, that’s my show. And I’m the one sitting out there. So I’ll put my hand up and say, ‘I’m the one who wants to say about that mistake that it can’t happen.’ And it’s hard for me to articulate how much it bothers me and how upsetting for that to happen, because it can’t. And it did.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HTbY-MMIj4&t=5308s
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio later reported that the mistake was likely to do a common labeling error in photo syndication sites, writing that he nearly used the same incorrect image himself in an article about Moore’s passing.
However, Scott Van Pelt did not offer any explanation or excuse for the miscue.
“I just wanted to say that how it happened is not as important as just owning the fact that it did, and just to let everyone know, and especially Myles Price … and the Moore family, that are going through this unimaginable time, that that’s an error that was made that truly, truly bothered me,” he said.
“Even sitting here right now, it just troubles me. Yeah we fixed it, but it doesn’t matter. That one can’t happen.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.