ESPN Deletes Graphic Promoting WNBA Players, Monica McNutt Over Scottie Scheffler After OutKick Post

ESPN posted a graphic Thursday to promote its newly launched direct-to-consumer service, highlighting the "icons" featured on the app.

"All the icons. All the moments. All of ESPN. All in one place," the graphic read.

On Friday morning, an OutKick reader flagged an X post from @SportsCenter promoting the graphic, pointing out some questionable inclusions and omissions.

Most notably, the cartoon-style image featured 11 WNBA players but only 10 NFL players and five college football players. Given that the majority of subscribers are expected to sign up to stream Monday Night Football and college football, the decision to prioritize female basketball players is quite strange.

Even more so, the graphic does not feature Scottie Scheffler. Scheffler is the most dominant golfer since Tiger Woods and arguably the most dominant athlete in all of sports today. 

Apparently, fresh off two major wins in 2025, Scheffler has more to prove to ESPN to edge out the 12th most famous player in the WNBA.

If only he could be as "iconic" as Monica McNutt. A week after exposing herself as unaware of Barry Sanders while hosting a segment about the NFL, ESPN added a photo of McNutt to the poster.

For fun, I joked about the graphic on X: "There are 20 WNBA players on here, 18 of whom most people don’t recognize. Yet Scottie Scheffler, the most dominant athlete today, isn’t included. Why?"

But as soon as our OutKick readers started to respond the post vanished. ESPN deleted it.

Take a look:

OutKick asked ESPN PR why the company deleted the post after our tweet. As expected, the network offered no reply.

It’s unclear who ultimately decided which athletes and broadcasters qualified as "icons." But given the graphic was used to promote ESPN’s most ambitious product launch in a decade, it’s safe to assume the poster was approved at the highest level, likely by chairman Jimmy Pitaro.

And we can just imagine the thought process.

Instead of spotlighting the most famous athletes, someone in Bristol seems to have prioritized a DEI checklist—tallying up a certain number of men, women, white athletes, and black athletes before handing instructions to the graphics department.

Go figure.

The result: a promotional image loaded with unrecognizable WNBA players, yet not a single starting MLB pitcher.

As a rule, when a sports network chooses to elevate someone who doesn’t know who Barry Sanders is (McNutt) over the most dominant athlete of this generation (Scheffler), the network has lost the plot.

Finally, how does Mina Kimes (bottom right) make the cut over Nick Saban, the legendary coach turned ESPN "GameDay" analyst?