The Most Revealing Moment From the Sugar Bowl Prompted an Apology From ESPN

Monday night’s Sugar Bowl was a heck of a game. The Washington Huskies powered past the Texas Longhorns, a formidable team that did its best to make things interesting. Washington quarterback Michael Penix, Jr., proved why he was in the hunt for the Heisman Trophy — and why he should have won.

Since my Georgia Bulldogs aren’t in the College Football Playoffs this year, I’ve adopted the Huskies as my team since I have family in Washington, so it was a fun game to watch. It was a much better game than the Rose Bowl between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Michigan Wolverines, a game I wish both teams could have lost.

But there was one moment during ESPN’s coverage of the game that got a lot of attention, and it had nothing to do with the game itself. Let me set up the context for you: for the uninitiated, the Sugar Bowl takes place in New Orleans every New Year’s Day, though occasionally a day or two before or after.

When a network like ESPN covers a game like the Sugar Bowl, it will usually have cameras in the area around the game to record atmospheric b-roll or capture live shots of the action in the city where the game is taking place. We all know that New Orleans is a party town, especially around New Year’s Day. There’s almost always some bacchanalian excitement going on, and this means that capturing live shots in and around New Orleans’ French Quarter can be dangerous.

Flashback: The College Football National Championship Means Everything to the Georgia Bulldogs

Late in the game, ESPN was coming back from a commercial break with a live camera shot from Bourbon Street. It’s a quick, six-second clip, but one woman made it a memorable moment by flashing her breasts at the camera. I’m not going to embed it — sorry, fellas — but you can see the video here.

“Even though there are often children out on Bourbon Street, especially during major events, it’s not uncommon for body parts to get flashed in exchange for the colorful Mardi Gras beads,” wrote Nikki Chavanelle at On3. “It is rare for those moments to become viral social media fodder, however.” 

It’s also rare for such a revelation — or a “momentary lapse in decency,” as Chavanelle put it — to make its way onto a live national broadcast. So ESPN had to apologize for the incident.

“We regret that this happened and apologize that the video aired in the telecast,” ESPN’s Bill Hofheimer told the Associated Press in a statement.

There’s no word on whether ESPN will face any FCC fines for the incident. The infamous "wardrobe malfunction" incident during Super Bowl XXXVIII netted CBS a $550,000 fine, although an appeals court voided it.

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