What if I told you the biggest story in football right now isn’t even about a real team? On Sunday August 31, I was watching a high school football game before I went to work. The game was played by IMG Academy and Bishop Sycamore. IMG was in complete control of the game and ended up winning in blowout fashion with a score of 58-0. As I was watching, I could not help but think “How is this game on TV?”
The answer is that ESPN got duped. Come to find out, Bishop Sycamore is not a real school. If you check the teams’ websites, IMG is a boarding school geared towards preparing high school athletes for the college and professional level. Bishop Sycamore’s site is currently unavailable after receiving extreme levels of backlash over the last 72 hours.
Here’s what we know about Bishop Sycamore. The school doesn’t appear to be real. They claim to be an online-only school. If you look for their address, it is listed as a P.O. box. ESPN could not verify Bishop Sycamore’s claims that they have several highly touted recruits on their team, which is the reason they got on television in the first place. Their head coach was fired on Tuesday amidst forcing his team to play in two games on the same weekend and reportedly having warrants out for his arrest. A former Bishop Sycamore athlete aired out more of the school’s dirty laundry in an interview with Complex.
As ESPN is left answering the media’s questions and doing some damage control to their reputation, Twitter users are having the time of their lives making fun of them and Bishop Sycamore. Since the game aired on Sunday through 12 PM on September 1st, Bishop Sycamore has amassed 348,827 mentions on the platform and the topic has reached over 1.43 billion users. The mentions peaked on Tuesday as news outlets started to release stories with more details about the school.
The majority of the conversation (83.3%) wielded negative sentiment. Users were in awe of how this could happen to an experienced media outlet such as ESPN.
Twitter users were quick to equate Bishop Sycamore to other scandals and memes that took the platform by storm.
In a year where Covid-19 has taken control of many sports-related headlines, Bishop Sycamore may have become the front runner for story of the year.
By Jacob Luksik
