What was meant to be a fun holiday giveaway went wrong at the Charlotte Hornets game when staff grabbed a PlayStation 5 from a young fan’s hands, giving them a team jersey instead. This happened on Dec. 16 during their game against Philadelphia. The drama started when the team’s mascot, dressed as Santa, handed the gaming system to a kid at center court, then grabbed it back. People on social media quickly got angry and called out the team for the switch.

After the kid’s family talked to local news, the team owned up to their mistake. They admitted their “bad decision-making and poor communication” ruined what should have been an exciting moment. To fix things, the Hornets will now give the young fan both the PS5 and a special VIP game package. They say they’ll do better with fan activities from now on.

Though Philadelphia ended up winning 121-108, the bigger loss was fan confidence. The next home game is set for Dec. 23 when Houston comes to the Spectrum Center. This PS5 mess adds to other complaints about how fans are treated. Even with better facilities and new community programs, issues keep coming up. Team officials took to social media to explain changes, saying they’ll plan events better and train their staff more to avoid similar problems.

As sports teams everywhere try to keep fans happy, this incident shows bigger problems with game-day experiences. News outlets are paying more attention to how local teams run promotions and deal with fans. Recent updates to make the arena nicer and add community programs to boost attendance haven’t quite worked as planned.

Staff are looking at how they run game days, with leaders saying they’re focused on making sure fans have a good time.