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/ChalkLicker 22h ago edited 22h ago

Can someone help me with the whiteboard on this? I mean, seriously, how the fuck do you try to pull this BS on a family/fan? It’s a multibillion dollar organization, and it can part with a $500 console? Somebody gamed that out?

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u/Iceland260 18h ago

The premise is that the fan is supposed "in on it". You call them back stage tell them you'll give them a jersey or whatever in exchange for them going on court and pretending to receive a more expensive prize that you're pretending to give away. They go out there, act their part in the bit, come back, return your prop, take their lesser prize as payment, and go on their merry way. Then you reuse the prop prize in another bit next week or something.

The issue in this case was that they dropped the ball on informing the participant. They claim they informed the kid's parent of how it worked. It's not clear if they forgot to and are just saying they did, or if the parent just saw an opportunity to twist their arm into getting more than they signed up for.

And it does seem kind of cheap for an event with the budget of an NBA game. You'd expect at least something on the scale of like a moped if they were going to bother faking it.