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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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…
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.
Was it even the kid’s letter to begin with? The whole thing just seems like a setup.
If it was setup, then why the fuck didn’t they just have the letter say he wanted the Jersey of his favorite Hornets player and aovid this shit? That just makes it even more incompetent.
PS5 seems more plausible that a kid would want, in my mind. 🤷♂️ But yeah. Pretending to do anything at all seems like a bad idea to begin with.
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.
One of the comments about why
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.
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 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.
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?
I don’t understand how what you’re describing is better. If you make the kid think he’s just gotten a PS5 then to take it away is incredibly cruel. Giving him a jersey is just insult cherry on the shameful cake. Unless I am misunderstanding what you’re proposing?
Pretty sure they are saying use an empty box on the court (lighter, no risk of breaking), and then take away the empty box afterwards (implied to give them an actual, not-empty box afterwards).
Ooooh. I definitely didn’t get that implication and thought the same as the commenter above. Couldn’t figure out how that’d be understandable lol.
I think they meant like theyd still give em a ps5 it just wouldn’t have been in the box on camera.
See this is why everyone hates Hornets, first the bullshit with the not making any honey and then this shit. They’re so aggressive.
That’s fucked up.
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Stingy.
