NBC promotes illegal activity at SF landmark during 49ers-Cowboys

But during the second quarter of Sunday’s rivalry showdown between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys, NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast displayed a graphic that ended up finishing with a bonfire on San Francisco’s Baker Beach.

There were several parts of the graphic to break down for their aesthetic choices around Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. But there is one major problem with the graphic:

Bonfires are prohibited from Baker Beach.

The answer: “At Baker Beach, bonfires are prohibited. Fires are only permitted in the fixed grills provided at the picnic area, east of the main parking lot.”

Sunday’s graphic from NBC shows Prescott on top of a white horse, for some reason, at the beach that sits at the far northwest corner of San Francisco. The headline for the graphic is about the Cowboys’ new “Texas Coast” offense.

Prescott — who is wearing a Cowboys white jersey with brown pants and a brown cowboy hat (that may be Photoshopped onto his head) — goes from on the horse to standing there with a football before throwing it to his left, with the horse running by. The graphic repeats the throw a few times as it shows the change in Prescott’s interceptions.

Then, the graphic finishes with Prescott sitting next to an open and burning fire, near the rocks that sit on the west side of the Golden Gate Bridge, with more stats showing his progress in 2023 in the new system.

NBC play-by-play broadcaster Mike Tirico talked over the graphic’s entire time on the air — about 25 seconds — and pretty much ignores the graphic’s quirks, sticking with a straight explanation of the changes the Cowboys have brought on offense. 

That’s different from how some of the top football broadcasters have treated these graphics, especially as the graphics have leaned further into absurdity.

But a graphic being absurd is very different from a graphic promoting an illegal activity. And even if we assume it was an accident, Bay Area residents can once again show how little the TV networks showing 49ers games know about the region.