How Not to Be Audience-Centered, ‘Stealing from Little Girls’ Edition

Earlier this summer, a young girl at her all-time first baseball game with her grandfather caught a home run ball.

What a special memory!

Even better, it was a valuable home run ball, the 200th homerun ever hit by young homerun hitting phenom, Ryan Howard.  Super duper cool!

The Philadelphia Phillies approached the girl, congratulating her and taking her to the clubhouse, supposedly to meet the young slugger and get his autograph.

Could this day get any better?

Well, maybe not, but it did get much worse.

Instead of meeting Howard, the Phillies took the ball and told her to come back later to meet him and get the ball signed.  When she showed up as directed, not only did Ryan Howard not appear, they had replaced the ball with another non-special ball he had signed.

What?

They tricked the little girl into giving up her ball.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Now, first a couple things.  Yes, the ball is valuable, but we’re not talking seven digits or even six.  The article I linked above cities an estimate of $1,500 to $3,000.  And while it’s a tidy sum if it drops into your lap, it’s not worth stealing from little girls over.

In fact, let me do some math and estimate the lifetime value of little Jennifer Validivia, if she had become indelibly loyal to the Phillies on the basis of being wowed by their star treatment of her:

Ok, she’s 12.  Assume that she lives to be 80, since she seems to be able to take care of herself pretty well.  That means she’s got 68 years to buy tickets, merchandise and whatever else from the Phillies.

If she goes to 2 Phillies games a year with 2 friends in good but not great seats, has some hot dogs and drinks each time she goes and pays for parking, she’s worth about $410 a year, even if she never buys a Phillies jersey, a Phillies key chain, trading card or raves to the thousands of people who follow her (not yet existent) website when she’s a famous journalist one day.

Over 68 years, that’s $27,880.

Reduce that by 90%, and it’s still a wash, monetarily.

But it’s naturally much, much worse than that, because now millions of people know that the Phillies stole a ball from a little girl and had to be taken to court before they’d give it back.

And here’s what Jennifer says:

“People are talking so much crap about the ball, and that we just wanted it for the money,” she said. “We had no idea what it was worth. I don’t think Mr. Howard had any idea what was going on. I blame the Phillies’ administration.”

I know a number of clubs that would LOVE to have had the opportunity to make Jennifer a fan, but I suspect she won’t be rooting for the Phillies in the playoffs this year.