ESPN Is Praying No One Remembers This Commercial Following ‘Good Good’ Controversy [VIDEO]
This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.
Good Good Golf and Callaway are still dealing with fallout from a controversial ad this week. One golf fan decided to dig up a very different commercial for comparison.
X account Danny Noonan Golf shared a clip showing “Terrible” Terry Tate, the fictional office linebacker from an early-2000s ad campaign, tackling a coworker at his desk.
The post included on-screen text reading, “ESPN praying to GOD no one remembers this commercial,” alongside a caption asking why that ad never faced the same backlash Good Good is dealing with now.
The comparison points back to one of advertising’s most famous physical-comedy campaigns.
Terry Tate Actually Debuted On A Different Network
One thing worth noting: Terry Tate: Office Linebacker was a Reebok campaign, not an ESPN production. The character first appeared during Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003, a broadcast that aired on ABC.
Lester Speight played Tate across nine total episodes between 2000 and 2005, tackling coworkers who broke office rules at the fictional Felcher & Sons. The campaign became one of the most beloved Super Bowl ads of all time, even though surveys found many viewers couldn’t recall it was actually promoting Reebok.
Fans in the replies leaned into the generational comparison anyway.
“Because most people had a sense of humor back then,” one user wrote. “People in the 20-35 years of age are so damn sensitive about everything. Hence cancel culture.”
Because most people had a sense of humor back then. People in the 20-35 years of age are so damn sensitivity everything. Hence cancel culture.
— Xavine (Gold Check Mark) (@Lovinemachine) August 26, 2026
Another simply wrote, “‘Cause Terry Tate Office Linebacker was hilarious.”
‘cause Terry Tate Office Linebacker was hilarious 😆
— D Brian Robertson (@BRob560) August 26, 2026
A third fan offered a different explanation, pointing to the media landscape rather than changing sensibilities.
“Terry Tate hit the airwaves when AOL Instant Messenger was the only social media outlet, 25 years ago,” they wrote. “People could very well have been outraged by this commercial, but the rest of us could not hear them.”
Terry Tate hit the airwaves when AOL Instant Messenger was the only social media outlet- 25 years ago. People could very well have been outraged by this commercial, but the rest of us could not hear them.
I don’t think our thought processes have changed as much as we have found…
— BoomBatty21 (@lattyshaw) August 27, 2026
The Good Good Controversy Remains An Ongoing Story
The comparison arrives amid real, ongoing fallout for Good Good and Callaway.
Their ad, promoting a co-branded Quantum Driver, showed co-founder Garrett Clark shoving fellow creator Alexis Miestowski to the ground before warning her not to touch his driver.
Both brands deleted the ad quickly, but not before it drew sharp criticism, including from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, who called the spot “concerning” and inconsistent with Tour values. Callaway CEO Chip Brewer later admitted the company had approved the ad before it ever went live.
Whether the Terry Tate comparison holds up is a matter fans are still debating in real time. What’s clear is that decades-old advertising standards look very different from what they do today, and that gap has become part of the conversation surrounding Good Good’s current crisis.
