There are very few things in life better than getting something for free. It’s why the human race has engineered ways to fire hot dogs, t-shirts, and tacos out of a compressed air cannon
We here at The False Nine, in our attempt to cover all aspects of Austin FC fandom, have come up with a grading rubric to judge and rate giveaways at Q2 stadium. It’s a very simple system for very simple items, everything is graded 1-100 with 5 points possible for the Look, Usability, and Originality categories. An additional 85 points are available for the Throwability category.
Final Rankings:
1-24 – Not worth the effort of grabbing from the attendant
25-49 – No one will be heartbroken by not getting the item, nor will they be sad when they accidentally leave it at the stadium
50-74 – A perfectly cromulent giveaway item
75-99 – An item to cherish and display
100 – Reserved for a Rodney Redes bobblehead
Now, let’s get to the Giveaway:
Netspend Phone Wallet (3/16/2024)
Look: It’s cheap plastic and the wrong color. They could have redeemed this by making it a cream color like the Armadillo kits.
Score: 1 out of 5
Usability: It only fits a singular credit card and an ID, hardly what anyone would refer to as a wallet. HOWEVER, it can hold up to 8 Plucker’s Free wing cards at once.
Score: 2 out of 5
Originality: This giveaway was done before the rankings began all the way back in 2021, and then it was objectively better and came in black.
Score: 1 out of 5
Throwability: Despite how Jeremiah Bentley again snubbed us for a game of catch at halftime, this item has been tested. I immediately threw it because I saw that the only reason it existed was to push an Austin FC Netspend card on us, which I’ve already declined multiple times thanks to the club selling our addresses and emails.
With its cheap flexible plastic and small shape it can be thrown like a playing card with moderate accuracy over short distances, but it has the same limitation as a playing card (unless you’re Gambit from the X-Men). When a credit card is inserted the item does do better in terms of distance and accuracy, but why would you throw something containing a credit card? If used as the actual intended purpose (cheaply glue it on the back of a phone or phone case) it becomes as throwable as a phone, but I ask again, at what cost?
Ed note: we do know the cost, an iPhone 15 Pro starts at 52.6 Electric Jellyfish at Q2 stadium.
In doing these rankings, everything until now had “raison de jeter” but this one doesn’t. It’s an inherently unthrowable item and therefore it must get the lowest score possible.
Score: 1 out of 85
Final Score: 5 out of 100
Ranking of Giveaways (score in parenthesis):
Yeti 10 oz Tumbler (96)
Heineken Koozie (86)
4ATX Foundation/SeatGeek Fan (85)
Yeti Hat 2023 (84)
Yeti Hat 2022 (81)
Netspend FanBand Bracelet (62)
4ATX Foundation Keychain Lanyard (50)
Two-Sided Towel (35)
Netspend Phone Wallet (5)
It’s at this point that it’s become clear that whoever is approving these giveaways on the Netspend side of things is at fault, with three of the bottom six. This is going to sound harsh, but that person should be fired
from a cannon
into Town Lake.
It’s only fair based on performance.
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