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How in the hell did people at ESPN think auctioning off football players on television was a good idea?

"Next on the auction block we have Odell Beckham Jr....."

Martha Tesema

on August 15, 2017

It's been less than 200 years since slavery ended and guess what— it's still too soon for fake auctions that pretend to sell human beings, and it will always be too soon for fake auctions that pretend to sell human beings.

ESPN apparently doesn't understand this, and made a very tone deaf decision to kick off fantasy football season with a televised auction 'selling' various players.

Yeah, this really did happen.

"Next on the auction block we have Odell Beckham Jr.," an auctioneer says in a clip that went viral quickly on Twitter yesterday. Another clip shows him 'auctioning' Antonio Brown of the Pittsburg Steelers, another African American football player. While not all those being 'sold' were black, the video which you can see below, is still very unsettling and looks straight out of a scene from Get Out.

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Folks tweeted their frustration at ESPN and their tone-deaf way into fantasy football drafts—which normally take place behind a computer screen or at private draft parties and don't invoke strong imagery of slave auctions.

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ESPN has responded to the backlash, apologizing in a statement provided to The Big Lead:

"Auction drafts are a common part of fantasy football, and ESPN’s segments replicated an auction draft with a diverse slate of top professional football players. Without that context, we understand the optics could be portrayed as offensive, and we apologize," the statement reads.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.