Restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings has jumped into the Houston Astros sign-stealing situation with both feet. Now, fans of the team are trying to get the chain boycotted as payback.
The problem for Buffalo Wild Wings was when someone on their social media team decided to compare the punishment handed down to the soccer club, Manchester City. That team was banned from competition for a couple of years and fined. The punishment was announced on Twitter and the restaurant chain took the opportunity to quote the tweet with the comment, “that’s how you punish a team that cheats.”
As ComicBook pointed out, the account did not mention the Houston Astros directly. It didn’t appear there needed to be a direct mention of the team before fans of the Astros came to their defense. At one point, there was even a movement to start a hashtag, #boycottbbw. Eventually, there were enough people tweeting the restaurant that Twitter users were also busy defending the company.
One user pointed out that even if Astros fans were somehow able to shut down the Houston area locations, it wouldn’t be all that big an impact on the company as a whole. Another user did point out there would be an impact. He tweeted out he had about 50 people going to Buffalo Wild Wings a week. He then asked whether or not he should stop doing that.
Some other area restaurants even jumped into the fray, looking to sweep up any customers Buffalo Wild Wings lost thanks to their tweet. Another user took a video of them cutting up a gift card they got, apparently not realizing the restaurant had already earned the money from that gift card.
Later in the day, the official Twitter account appeared to have realized the backlash it had brought on itself. On Saturday morning, the account sent out a tweet apologizing for the one that had drawn so much ire.
“So last night was the roast of Buffalo Wild Wings, courtesy of the city of Houston. And honestly, we deserved it. Well done H-Town for coming to your team’s defense, and we’re sorry about what we posted.”
The incident was the latest in what has been a kind of back and forth between the Houston Astros and their supporters, and the rest of the baseball world. The team has been drawing insults and attacks from a wide range of people. The harshest of comments have come from other Major League Baseball players who are personally offended the team was using an electronic system to steal signs.