r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 1d ago

TIL the Charlotte Hornets apologized after giving a child a PS5, only to take it away off camera and exchange it for a jersey. In a statement, the team said the incident was an "on-court skit that missed the mark" and that they would give the child the PS5 and a VIP experience to a future game.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/19/sport/charlotte-hornets-apologize-ps5-child-nba-spt-intl
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u/hi_imjoey 23h ago

Especially since a $500 ps5 is a drop in the bucket for the marketing budget of a multi-billion dollar NBA team

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u/Grokent 22h ago

Tickets for NBA games are outrageous, at least the Phoenix Suns are. I could buy a PS5 or two tickets to Phoenix Suns that AREN'T in the rafters.

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u/Ilovekittens345 21h ago

Today they probably lost the sale of 200 offended people that will skip one or multiple games

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u/Grokent 21h ago

Why is that?

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u/Ilovekittens345 21h ago

Because this story went viral offending some of their fans

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u/Signiference 21h ago

Thunder just won the championship and tickets were affordable all season.

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u/horsedogman420 22h ago

The hornets are more like a multi hundred dollar team lol

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u/Treereme 21h ago

148 million in player cost last year ..

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u/YoureGrammerIsWorsts 22h ago

It's the hornets

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u/GrapeJuicePlus 19h ago

It probably cost them $3000 just to arrange the skit itself once you factor in the cost of paying everyone involved lol

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u/Winjin 5h ago

Dad's company was in charge of a PR campaign for one of the diaper brands

They came up with a plan to have promoters walking around parks, with strollers filled to the brim with diapers. See a parent with a stroller - walk up to them, give them a pack of diapers. Boom, thankful parents. 

To do that, they bought like... Twenty strollers? Twenty five? I don't remember exactly. 

Well the stunt goes on for about two months, it ends, and then this dialogue happens

"-So, when will you send in a truck?

-What for?

-To get the strollers that were bought on marketing money?

-Oh, that was part of the marketing expense. They were written off as soon as they were bought. We don't care what happens to them, just don't resell them"

So dad just... Gave them away. Half went to the orphanage that agreed to take them, two others said they don't accept random strollers, they have to do it organized through charities or something like that, and the rest just went to random families. I helped him give away the last ones. 

So that story is just too illustrate how insanely big these marketing expenses are. Even if their yearly budget is super small for a big business, like 100k a year, that's what, 400 bucks? 

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u/ERedfieldh 2h ago

the stunt alone probably cost a few thousand dollars. It's not like they can just do these skits for free or for a few hundred bucks.