The tragic passing of Vikings receiver Rondale Moore resulted in an embarrassing moment for ESPN. The photo ESPN used during Saturday night's SportsCenter was not Rondale Moore. It was Vikings receiver Myles Price.
Via Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing, the incorrect photo appeared at 1:07 a.m. ET. It was removed from later versions of the broadcast, with Scott Van Pelt re-taping the segment. ESPN also apologized for using the incorrect photo.
It's an understandable mistake. The photo services that provide images for ESPN and other media outlets routinely misidentify players and coaches.
We deal with it frequently. The search term is entered (i.e., the name of the person), and the options appear. Sometimes (and once is too often), the wrong photo is delivered.
On Saturday night, I nearly made the same mistake. At the last second, I remembered that Moore played only one game last year for the Vikings — in the home preseason opener against the Texans. There should have been no photos anywhere of Moore in a Vikings uniform with a white jersey.
Moore wore No. 4 in his only Vikings game. After Moore suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason opener against the Texans, Price switched to No. 4. Multiple photos of Price from the 2025 season have been labeled by the photo services as photos of Moore. (Since Saturday night, one of the services we use has caught the error and for the most part fixed it. The other service has not.)
When creating content and/or preparing graphics for a broadcast, things move quickly. Mistakes made by the photo services often aren't noticed.
But that's undoubtedly what happened to ESPN. Someone searched their photo service for an image of Rondale Moore, and the service had incorrectly included photos of Myles Price within the available selections. When the person making the graphic didn't instantly recognize it was Price (or didn't instantly realize it wasn't Moore), the mistake made by the photo service made its way through to the final product.
It's not an excuse, but an explanation. Until the various photo services properly categorize and label the photos, there's a chance that someone will access the service, enter the person's name, and select a photo without realizing the photo service served up the wrong photo.
It's unfortunate, but it happens. Hopefully, ESPN's error as to Rondale Moore will prompt the various photo services to accurately identify the persons in the photos they generate. Given that the media outlets pay the photo services for those images, it's important that the right images are provided.