So the question is now turning to “how the hell did this happen?” Both from the standpoint of a seemingly imaginary online school playing actual football games, to faking their way onto ESPN — presumably to boost their enrollment and keeping the money printer whirring. To that end ESPN is placing the blame on Paragon Marketing Group, a third-party entity responsible for organizing the team’s for ESPN’s Sunday showcase.
In a statement to Koo, ESPN said:
“We regret that this happened and have discussed it with Paragon, which secured the matchup and handles the majority of our high school event scheduling. They have ensured us that they will take steps to prevent this kind of situation from happening moving forward.”