ESPN Badly Misspelled ‘San Francisco,’ and College Basketball Fans Were Howling

It’s been a rough week for spelling in California.

In discussions of Bay Area basketball, the University of San Francisco tends to fly under the radar.

The Golden State Warriors—NBA champions four times in the past decade—have a tendency to dwarf everything around them. Stanford boasts one of the best women’s programs in the country. California produced pro stars Jason Kidd and Jaylen Brown.

Before other teams in the area were winning, however, the Dons were winning—back-to-back NCAA titles in 1955 and ’56, led by legendary center Bill Russell.

They are, in short, worthy of both respect and correct spelling.

ESPN inadvertently denied them the latter Monday night with an extraordinarily off-the-mark rendering of San Francisco—as “San Framcoscp.”

pic.twitter.com/i0IDmXIG7V

— No Context College Basketball (@ContextFreeCBB) March 12, 2024

College basketball fans had a field day with the keyboard mishap.

Homefield Apparel, the social media-friendly apparel brand, vowed to obtain a license to sell San Framcoscp merchandise.

will be hard to get the license but we’ll try https://t.co/r0MOb6xWfb

— Homefield (@HomefieldApparl) March 12, 2024

Some wondered whether the program would be available for conference realignment.

new atlantic 10 replacement for umass amherst just dropped https://t.co/f4q0KW3zDM

— FBS Independents Fan 🥥🌴 (@LilBonaX) March 12, 2024

Was this what the late Tony Bennett had in mind…?

I left my heart...in San Framcoscp https://t.co/B9bros7WbK

— Chris (@NotSoMidMajor) March 12, 2024

...or the Catholic Church?

no they got it right, nobody remembers Framcospc of Assisi https://t.co/5L6ZxNRVJN pic.twitter.com/bJnU5blRU7

— bradley miller - @bradleywithane 🧵☁️📺🕒 (@bradleywithanE) March 12, 2024

Luckily for ESPN, worse crimes against typography were committed in California this week.

The people who built the Kobe statue https://t.co/6IpVXUdDmu

— JakeShore (@J_Shore32) March 12, 2024

Alas, the Dons lost their West Coast Conference tournament semifinal game against Gonzaga on Monday night, 89–77, in Las Vegas.