During this Monday’s match between the Hornets and the 76ers in Charlotte, the home team’s mascot handed a PlayStation to a 13-year-old fan, who happily took the gift during a half-court ceremony. After giving out the prize, the franchise staff was later seen off camera taking the present away from the young kid.
The incident has created a lot of waves of social media, as it was captured in a post on X that now has over 4.5 million views. Apparently, the skit that involves the Hornets’ mascot Hugo dressed as Santa Claus, is a common practice. In this case, the teenage fan was handed a jersey instead of the gaming console.
The X user who posted about the incident, described himself as the best friend of the child’s uncle. “At this point, everybody thinks that Jack is going to get this PS5, including all the dancers, all the cheerleaders, everybody basically like, starts congratulating him,” he told the press.
The Hornets described the incident as an “on-court skit that missed the mark” and offered the teen a PS5 as well as a VIP experience to another gamehttps://t.co/KBhNPwf9WM
— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) December 19, 2024
“There was even a Hornets dancer who actually gave him the PS5 … she starts to pack it up for him in the bag,” he added.”Then we get kind of like all the way to the backstage and, you know, the guy who kind of found us in the first place, he starts to kind of take it away.”
According to his recount, things got even messier due to how confusing it was. “And everybody thinks he’s joking because nobody would think he’d be taking the PS5 from the kid,” the fan assured. “It got pretty awkward because, eventually, he had to make it make it clear that he wasn’t joking.”
The Hornets organization had no choice but to address the situation and later apologized in a statement. “The skit included bad decision making and poor communication. Simply put, we turned the ball over and we apologize,” the Charlotte club stated.
The club then offered a solution: “We have reached out to the family and are committed to not only making it right but to exceeding expectations. We will be providing the fan with the PS5 that he should have taken home last night along with a VIP experience to a future game.”
