Did a viral video of a kiss between two South Florida Bulls football players show a real-life scene? No, that's not true: The video was digitally manipulated to alter the original footage that only showed celebratory hugs. ESPN confirmed to Lead Stories that it did not air the kissing scene.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X.com, where it was published on September 8, 2025. It opened:
i love gay sports.
This is what the video attached to the post looked like at the time of writing on X:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/skyferrori.)
The video displayed the ESPN logo and purported to show two South Florida Bulls players, kicker Nico Gramatica (archived here) and punter Chase Leon (archived here). However, the TV channel never showed the kissing scene, a spokesperson for ESPN told Lead Stories via email on September 9, 2025:
ESPN did not broadcast this because it is digitally altered by someone on the internet and very clearly fake.
The event in question was the September 6, 2025, game (archived here) that concluded with the South Florida Bulls' victory. The spontaneous celebrations on the field were documented in a longer, authentic ESPN video (archived here). The scene from the post reviewed in this fact check begins at the 21:58 mark, but it does not involve any kissing. The same moment could be seen in a different clip (archived here) at the 1:34 mark, but it still didn't show what the post on X claimed it did.
