If someone attempts to create a fantasy football team name with certain words, the sports network rejects the name with a banner that pops up saying, “Team name/abbreviation contains a banned word.”
ESPN Fantasy Football has banned teams from being named "White Lives Matter," while allowing "Hamas Lives Matter." The discovery was reported by OutKick after football fans raised concerns.
It turns out ESPN has a number of banned words and phrases when you names you fantasy football team. If someone attempts to create a fantasy football team name with certain words on the list, the sports network rejects the name with a banner that pops up saying, "Team name/abbreviation contains a banned word."
The banned speech includes racial slurs and other terms such as "White Lives Matter." However, "Black Lives Matter" is allowed as a team name, and shockingly, the network allows "Hamas Lives Matter,” per the report.
Libs of TikTok pointed out the disparity between the treatment of “Black Lives Matter” and White Lives Matter” sparking backlash against the network as well as leading to more investigation into the words allowed for the fantasy teams.
ESPN also prohibits several offensive singular words, including "Nazi" and other foul language. OutKick reached out to ESPN for the complete list of banned words, but did not immediately hear back from the sports media network. The network has not yet issued a public response over the matter. Users on X called it "slippery slope" with regard to free speech.
To compare, Yahoo Fantasy Football, which is the second-largest fantasy football league, has no banned words, per OutKick's reporting. Players can name their teams whatever they want, even if the speech may be offensive to some.
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