Nobody does petty quite like the NBA. The on-court basketball product is great by itself, but when you couple that with the copious amount of off-court petty nonsense between players, NBA team Twitter accounts, agents, insiders, coaches, general managers, and owners, you’d have a hard time finding a more entertaining 24/7 entity than the National Basketball Association.
The most-recent example of NBA pettiness revolves around the Milwaukee Bucks’ new ticket promotion. No, really, we’re sneaking in subtle shots into our ticket promotions these days.
The Bucks are currently advertising a pretty standard ticket promotion called the Starting Five Holiday Package that ultimately boils down to your typical 5-game ticket package. The catch is, you choose your games by clicking on the avatar for that teams best player. For example, John Wall represents the Washington Wizards, Dirk Nowitzki represents the Dallas Mavericks, LeBron James represents the Cleveland Cavaliers, so on and so forth.
When Bucks fans are prompted to select their final roster spot, or in this case, game ticket, the Chicago Bulls are one of your options. Who did the Milwaukee Bucks choose as the Bulls’ best player? Benny the Bull.
Lmao at the Milwaukee Bucks ticket package website. Look for the Bulls. pic.twitter.com/Z7DE0spS7x
— Jackie Daytona (@Kikstiks3) November 8, 2017
On one hand, this is hilariously disrespectful. On the other hand, who would you try to sell fans on if they were going to see a Bulls game these days? Bobby Portis? Nikola Mirotic? The real answer would probably be Zach LaVine, but he hasn’t played yet this season. Lauri Markkanen is having an excellent rookie year, but is he putting butts in seats right now?
Let’s not discredit Benny the Bull, either. He’s been a Chicago mainstay since 1969. He’s going into the Mascot Hall of Fame next year!
And in case you thought that this was some kind of user error, or a rogue employee making a funny, think again. The Bucks willfully retweeted ESPN business reporter Darren Rovell applauding them for their creativity. Bless you, NBA. Never change.
