2mo ago

Hornets apologize after pretending to give child PS5 and taking it away off camera - Yahoo Sports

sports.yahoo.com Hornets apologize after pretending to give child PS5 and taking it away off camera

Unbeknownst to the kid, the Hornets were only pretending to give him a console.

The skit that "missed the mark" occurred in a break in play during the second quarter of Charlotte's game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday. The child was brought onto the court with Hugo, the Hornets' mascot, dressed as Santa Claus. After a letter to Santa requesting a PS5 was read out loud, a cheerleader came out with a bag containing the video game console.

The young fan was visibly overjoyed as he received the pricy gift. However, according to an online acquaintance, he was less happy when the cameras turned off and a Hornets staffer took it away, replacing it with a jersey.

141 comments

The skit that "missed the mark" . . .
Quit sucking up to corporate America, yahoo sports writer. The Hornets farked up a simple PR event in every way it was possible TO fark up. They baited and switched a PS5 with a t-shirt and thought no one would find out about it.
- And they have so damn much money that giving him the PS5 would have been like you or me flicking a penny to the kid.
  People suck sometimes, I swear.
  
  Sometimes?
  
  No offense, but that's the wrong take here. "People" (as in The People, or the majority) didn't do this, a giant 3 billion dollar organization did. Sure, it's composed of people, but this is unregulated capitalism run amok...

One of the comments about why
- How would this commenter know that?
  
  I mean surely it could be a lie but they just took away a PS5 from a kid...
  
  By having met her.
  
  Source: trust me bro
  
  It's entirely plausible this person knows the lady in question.
  
  You want Lemmy adoption.. you get folks with stature in the machine sharing mundane recon.. you don't believe anything.
- Yikes.
- Unfortunately, this applies to 99% of people in power I know of, if they think they’ll get away with it, they’ll do it.
  You don’t usually get into places of power by being thoughtful and considerate.

I might suggest that the kid got a nicer present in the form of a reason to file suit against the team for the embarrassment and emotional distress. Using the kid for a BS publicity stunt is not acceptable.

Jfc... How much of a psychopathic piece of shit do you have to be, to hurt a kid's feelings like that?! I fucking hate people.
- It reminds me of the Santa mall scene in a Christmas Story
- Corporate America....

LOL. Cheap bastards. I mean, PS5 is an expensive gift, but not for such an occasion, no?
- The team has revenue in the millions. They'd never have noticed the money. This should be in the dictionary under Penny Wise, Pound Foolish.
  
  Kinda reminiscent of various Russian official events involving children.
  
  That’s coincidentally the name of my last porno.
- Compared to the marketing expenses of even very small companies, a PS5 is so ridiculously cheap that these costs are not even worth mentioning.
  
  I meant expensive for a kid. Of course, yes.
- If a PS5 is too expensive to give away, then don't pretend to give one away.
  I feel like I shouldn't have to say this.
- It could have literally been a tax write off
  
  It could have been a glitch in tax calculator tbh. Not my point. And I agree with you. "LOL. Cheap bastards" was my point.
- Not expensive for a literal NBA team.
- Why? It's a few hundred dollars, not a car or something.
- Three. Billion. Dollars.
  That's what the team is worth and what it was sold for a year ago...

This means there was at least one meeting where this plan was discussed and approved by multiple staffers who have jobs and salaries and manage to find their way to work and back home at night.
- Likely it cost more to have said meeting than the ps5 itself
- I can almost guarantee that one of them wanted the PS5 for themselves, and insisted on swapping it out so they could take the console.
  
  Sometimes psychopaths and other malignant types will purposefully influence a team into a bad move, to try and cast bad light on others who carry it out.
- I think I know where they could have gotten the idea.
  In re-runs of old gameshows, it's not unheard of for them to edit the clips to look like the prize is Insert Sponsor Here, when the prize is actually something different. You can really notice this on Kid's Gameshows when the prize is something like an Xbox 360 for a gameshow that took place in 2002. (When a PS2 would be fair more likely)
  However that's for RE-RUNS of PRE-TAPED SHOWS, meaning the person who won the original prize got the original prize and original airings would have shown said prize. The only "change" would been purely for advertisement purposes only.
  That's very different from "You're getting an all-expenses paid trip to the Bahamas!" and then backstage they say "And here's an old Terminator T-Shirt or something, the one we had in storage that doesn't have the custard stain."
  Which is very much what this situation was.
  They probably heard about this practice and assumed that they could give a fake prize that's sponsor friendly, and then the real prize is something far less extravagant. Which tells me that they did not run this by their lawyers.
  
  Retro-editing to update products in reruns is an interesting and weird concept, but makes total sense given the perfection paranoia of marketers.

I guess I'll continue not watching basketball or football or whatever
- "Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"
  
  The thing about Arsenal is they always try to walk it in!
- Yeah. Fuck this noise. I'm boycotting the Hornets. You won't catch me at a Hornets Football match!

That's called theft. Legally a gift is irrevocable once it's given.
- IANAL Warning
  Indeed, there was a story a while back where a bar had a contest for their staff; Whoever could sell the most drinks would receive a new Toyota.
  Well one woman who really needed a new car busted her ass for that, and was taking to a parking lot where she was given a stuffed toy of Yoda from Star Wars; a "Toy Yoda"
  She was told it was a joke and there was never any realistic chance of some local pub giving away new cars to minimum wage staff.
  Well she sued over this joke, and actually won because during the contest she specifically asked what kind of Toyota it was and was told by her supervisor; the one who started the contest in the first place. That it very specifically was a real car that would be paid for in full and put in her name at no cost to her. Which invalidated any claim to this being a gag or a hoax.
  You can imply that the prize is whatever you want it to be, and give whatever you want the prize to be. But the second you specify what the prize is in no unsubtle terms, you have to give it.
  It's why I can say in a public ad that if you show up to my house wearing a Ballerina Outfit and a Cowboy Hat, and then knock on the door in the rhythm of the BGM "Bloody Tears", I will give you 100 Grand. You have no case if I hand you a candy bar literally called 100 Grand.
  But if I said "That's right, one hundred thousand dollars in cash!", that wouldn't fly and you can take me to court.
  But If I stayed on message and only said 100 Grand, using THAT exact phrasing, especially if I make other misleading but accurate claims like it being "100 Grand, yeah that's something to really sink your teeth into" then what I'm doing is hillarious.
  By putting the PS5 Box in the kid's hands and saying he won a Playstation, that ended any ambiguity, taking away the box and giving him a Jersey was an act of fraud.
  
  She was told it was a joke and there was never any realistic chance of some local pub giving away new cars to minimum wage staff.
  I remember that story. It wasn't a local pub, it was a Hooters. Hooters is an enormous nationwide chain that could easily afford a Camry.
- He was given an empty box for show, letting him keep it wouldn't make it any better.
- They never intended on giving the kid the gift. If they allowed them to go home with the PS5, and then requested it back the next day, then the family would have a good argument that ownership was transferred to them. This was just a bad joke.
  Edit: on lemmy.world it's like I never left reddit!
  
  That's utter nonsense. A gift only counts if you make it home with the gift? Where did you come up with that?
  
  Why would the act of going home change the legality? Or intent?
  If i take a $20 bill and hand it to a stranger in front of witnesses and say, "Here you go, this is a gift."
  If in 5 mins, I snatch that bill back and walk away. That's legal? Because he didn't touch his house first, and I never had intent to give a gift?
  
  Intent matters but not if the intent was to deceive. If the act had all the elements that represent giving a gift, then legally it WAS giving a gift. Otherwise all gifts could be taken back at any time just by claiming that it was actually a joke.
  
  Don't be defensive. I didn't downvote you, but when you pull false claims out of your ass that make no sense, that's going to happen...

I swear The Boys gets more and more blatant with how evil Corporate America is, but cmon, this episode is just completely ridiculous. Not even Homelander would be that ev....
Wait this happened in a REAL Sportsball game? This is not a bit? sugh
I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed
- It’s absolutely amazing to me that they didn’t realize this was gonna cause a backlash.
  
  Right? Like, I don't understand in what universe did this seem like a good idea?
  They actually read the fucking kid's letter to Santa live at the Stadium, and only pretended to give him a PS5? This is basically bullying the poor guy.

It'd be nice if people stopped acting like fucking psychos.
- $500 for good press or $0 for bad. Looks like Charlotte is as bad at math as they are at basketball.
  
  I'm sure the Chinese made Jersey has some value.

What fucking cheapskates.
Do they make their players turn out their pockets after each game in case they picked up some loose change off the ground too? Lol

I feel like this is so boneheaded that it has to be the case where the staff member in charge of this giveaway just wanted to keep the PS5 themselves and thought the kids wouldn't complain about the ol' switcheroo! This just even sounds like something Michael Scott would have done in The Office.
- No, Michael Scott is a moron, not a jackass. He wouldn't pull this shit. He's tone deaf, he constantly thinks he's doing the right thing without realizing why what he's doing has the opposite of the intended effect even when it's obvious to everyone else. Giving a kid something he wants and then taking it away when no one's look is a move of calculated evil.
  He'd imply heavily a PS5 then give the kid a Jersey, at no point would he actually have the thing in the kid's hand and then take it back.
  Maybe that's just me, but I don't see Michael Scott as a character that would knowingly choose to do something immoral. He'd do a bad deed, but without realizing it.
  Mike Scott's more the "We're taking away free tampons on the women's room, because we just don't have the money for luxury goods." type, who's then baffled when he's called sexist because he legitimately believed tampons were a luxury. Not the "Promote a woman? Are you insane? This is a man's office sweetheart!" type.
  I could totally see Dwight taking the PS5 for himself and mocking the kid over it though. Even then he'd do it out of Chaos, not Evil.
  
  Top tier analysis. Thank you.
  
  Season 1 Michael was a bit more of a jackass though. Maybe he could've done it.
  
  Michael kidnapped a pizza delivery boy because he didn't want to pay full prize. This fits right in.

I bet the price of that console was going to break their bank.

I mean I would get it if they had an empty box out on the court for the show, and then having to take away the empty show box... But they gave the kid a jersey instead? Wtf?

That's fucked up.

wait what? did they go back to the store and ask for a refund on the PS5, lol.... someone was like "that is fine we will just apologize and save a couple hundred bucks!"

Stingy.
- They're Hornets. Being stingy bastards is in the name!

Goddamn hornets, this is why everyone prefers bees
- Speak for yourself. Bees are an invasive species given an unfair advantage through their alliance with humanity. If they aren't native to an area, they are a pest that competes with local pollinators and drives them toward extinction
  
  describes every domesticated animal
  
  Bees did nothing wrong
  
  But why just speak for yourself when you could speak for everyone?
  You're welcome!

Certain headlines get really funny if you pretend sports don't exist.
Or, in my case for this particular situation, if you are a foreigner and are missing a lot of context for American Sports.
- The writer of this article is definitely a hornet.
  The skit that "missed the mark"
  
  https://xkcd.com/1530/

That sounds about right, I've never gotten anything nice from a hornet. The one time I did get something from a hornet, it was a painful disappointment.

No wonder they were just eradicated from North america
- PlayStations?
  
  Children.

The only conceivable explanation is that the person who planned this sees audience members as less than human.

See this is why everyone hates Hornets, first the bullshit with the not making any honey and then this shit. They're so aggressive.
- Classic hornet 🐝

Reminds me of the time some asshole tried to switch some kid who was meant to walk out on the field with Zlatan with his own and got caught Link: https://youtu.be/NFYN3bY0kc8