Shropshire Star

Why a basketball reporter has been forced to apologise to Australia for eating a pie wrong

Cutlery? Really?

Published

When the Philadelphia 76ers signed young Australian Ben Simmons to their roster, they had the perfect idea for a marketing promotion: adding meat pies to the menus at their concession stands.

Pies are an important business in Australia but, unlike on the terraces of UK football grounds, they’re a relatively unknown quantity at American sporting venues, where hot dogs and nachos are often the order of the day.

Enter ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell, who went the extra mile to help out fans by posting a video of himself tasting a Four’N Twenty pie to Twitter so they’d know what to expect.

But he had no idea that in so doing he would somehow manage to offend the entire population of Australia.

Because that is not how you eat a Four’N Twenty pie.

No, cutlery should not be used.

Things escalated pretty quickly.

Even the police got involved.

Things got so bad that Rovell had to issue not one but two apologies.

Even that may not have been enough.

To avoid future diplomatic incidents, next time it should probably look a bit more like this…

It seems the makers of Four’N Twenty themselves weren’t too bothered though.

Whether or not any of this is making Simmons feel at home is anyone’s guess, but he’s certainly looking the part in the NBA – he scored 27 points in Monday night’s 107-86 win over the Utah Jazz.

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