Kansas City Chiefs (@kcchiefs)
The culprit worthy of shame in this instance isn't so much the Kansas City Chiefs as it is the person behind the professional football team's Twitter handle. But the brand took the PR hit because the employee's identity has not been released.
That employee forgot that the customer is always right -- the customers in the sports world being fans -- and decided to send a pointed direct message to a critical fan. Direct messages are private, but as we've seen before, recipients tend to make them public when the senders are important.
In the case of the Chiefs, the Twitter handler sent a direct message that said, "Would help if you had your facts straight. Your choice to be a fan. cc get a clue." The recipient, Travis Wright (@teedubya), shared a screen shot of the message, and more criticism of the Chiefs ensued.
The Chiefs apologized -- sort of. The writer of the DM posted this follow-up tweet: "I apologize to the fans for my response to a tweet sent to me earlier. No excuse for my actions. I am truly sorry and it won't happen again." But one reason it won't happen again is because the juvenile in charge of the Twitter handle blocked Wright.
"I'm not trying to get the guy (who sent me the message) fired," Wright told Scripps Media. "I' m trying to get them to understand they can't treat their fans with contempt."