Padres shut down fan by setting impossible Retweet goal

Do you get the feeling that the Padres constantly miss opportunities to interact and market to fans? Me too. A few fans recently inquired about getting the Padres to agree to a deal that would let them throw out the first pitch at a game. The deal is based on a meme from a few years ago, that was most popularly used by students to get out of their finals. They’d get their teachers or professors to agree that if they received a certain number of Twitter retweets the exam would be canceled.

The Padres allow fans and businesses to basically buy the opportunity to throw out the first pitch, so this isn’t hallowed ground here. Giving one fan the opportunity to take a shot at a retweet goal would cost the team virtually nothing and would only bring them good will and free advertising.

Instead the Padres basically shut fans down and said don’t bother interacting with the Padres or try to start a grass roots marketing campaign on behalf of the team. They set the retweet goal for 101 Million retweets.

The goal is impossible. From my quick search, only two tweets ever have broken the 1 million retweet barrier. Number one was Ellen’s Oscar tweet with 3 million and the other was 2 million from One Directioner Louis Tomlinson.

The Padres should have picked a large but semi-reasonable, achievable number, like say 1,000 retweets. What the Padres failed to realize is that they don’t have to agree to this deal with every fan. It’s not like suddenly all fans with 1,000 retweets are going to get the opportunity to throw out the first pitch. Just as not all exams across the world were cancelled when a professor agreed to a deal. The Padres should agree to the deal with a few fans, every so often.

With their #CelebrateSD event coming up next week, and fan interest always waning it would have been the perfect opportunity to have the fan and surrounding community promote the event and go for the goal on the fan’s behalf. Instead they stymie fan passion again.