Running the social media accounts of ESPN is no easy task. However, it seems that the Worldwide Leader in Sports went to bizarre lengths to create a video supposedly from Damian Lillard’s debut with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Lillard had an impressive first game in Milwaukee, scoring 39 points — a record for a Bucks debut — along with eight rebounds, four assists, and zero turnovers. This came just a month after he was traded from the Portland Trail Blazers in a three-team blockbuster trade.
During and after the game, there were many moments that were perfect for sharing on social media, including his game-sealing 3-pointer and his postgame quotes breaking down the play.
However, ESPN, who was not broadcasting the game, took a different approach. The network’s SportsCenter accounts posted a video of Lillard saying, “Ain’t nothing I want more. I told you when I first came here. I said ‘I didn’t come here to waste my time,” with the caption “DAME DIDN’T COME TO MILWAUKEE TO WASTE HIS TIME” in all caps. The same video and caption were also posted on Instagram.
At first glance, the video gives the impression that ESPN somehow got an interview with Lillard, who is wearing a Bucks jersey and speaking into an ESPN microphone, with the Bucks logo on the court in the background.
However, there are some discrepancies in the video. Lillard’s Bucks jersey is not the one the team wore that day, and the Fiserv Forum does not have an NBA logo at center court like the one shown in the video. Additionally, the elongated microphones used by ESPN in the clip are not typically used by anyone.
If you look closely at the video, specifically at the jersey strap on Lillard’s right shoulder, you can see some odd interaction with the court background. This is because the video was manipulated or “deepfaked” by ESPN.
The original video, in which TNT’s Chris Haynes interviews Lillard in 2020 during the NBA’s time in the Disney World bubble, can be seen here.
Portland radio host Danny Marang was the first to point out the oddness of the video, and it quickly gained traction in a way ESPN probably didn’t anticipate. The network eventually released a statement to Sports Media Watch, claiming that the video was an attempt to combine notable sports moments:
“We occasionally look to connect sports moments of the past with contemporary imagery and storylines as part of our social content. While it was never our intention to misrepresent anything for fans, we completely recognize how this instance caused confusion.”
The explanation sounds innocent enough, but it doesn’t address some major issues. ESPN claims they didn’t intend to misrepresent anything to fans, but they failed to make it clear what exactly fans were watching. In the absence of context, the average sports fan would assume ESPN conducted a new interview with Lillard.
It’s also strange and possibly ethically and legally problematic that ESPN took a video from a competitor, TNT, and edited out its logo for its own use. Yahoo Sports has reached out to TNT for comment.
Considering that ESPN is a branch of The Walt Disney Company, known for having aggressively protective intellectual property attorneys, one wonders how the network would react if someone used their own interviews in a similar manner.
Above all, this incident is just weird and leaves fans with a negative view of what may happen in the future if ESPN continues down this path. There is an abundance of content available to aggregate, so it is unnecessary for the biggest sports accounts on the internet to alter real videos to fit their own branding. This blurs the line between reality and deception, a concern that many already have due to the increasing use of AI and deepfakes.
The backlash to the video, including a community note on X, should make ESPN reconsider before attempting something like this again.
