FCC Wants to Fine ESPN Six Figures for Emergency-Alert Sound Effects in NBA Promos

The network is in hot water for the way it advertised basketball games last season.

The ESPN logo. / Andrew Weber-Imagn Images

Even the most ardent fans may tune out ESPN's NBA promos in the run-up to the start of the regular season. However, these promos have landed the network in hot water with an unlikely authority: the U.S. government.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $147,000 fine on ESPN for illegally using an emergency-alert sound effect in NBA promos before the start of last season, it announced in a Thursday release.

“Transmitting EAS tones in the absence of an actual emergency is not a game,” FCC enforcement chief Loyaan Egal said in the release. “These types of violations can raise substantial
public safety concerns by causing confusion and in some cases interfering with legitimate
emergency uses."

The unusual fine is not the first levied toward a sports network for misusing emergency-alert sound effects. ESPN has been fined twice in the past for such violations, while David Shepardson of Reuters noted that Fox paid a significantly larger fine for an NFL promotional segment in 2021.

"ESPN will be given an opportunity to respond and the (FCC) will consider submissions of evidence and legal arguments before acting further to resolve these matters," the body said in its release.

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