(The University of California Marching band, FYI).

Sort of, yes! The photo was taken during a tour of Japan the band took (around 1970, I believe), and more or less went into "file photo" or stock status there. When the developers of Tecmo Bowl were trying to brainstorm how to present an American football halftime show, someone grabbed it!

This is absolutely the proper response: the explanations are almost always explicitly bigoted (to an extent that even the perpetrator feels a need to hide behind coded language like "woke), or so hopelessly ambiguous as to betray that the perp is an evasive, dishonest goober.

For my first Bluesky post, I thought I'd remind everyone that my dad, Albert Locher, is a part of video game history via 1987's Tecmo Bowl (NES).