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Cody Nelson
St. Paul

Hmong dance team mentor accuses Lynx of using 'exploitative' sales tactics

Lynx game
Minnesota Lynx guards Seimone Augustus, left, and Lindsay Whalen, right, in a playoff game last year.
Stacy Bengs | AP file

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Tou Ger Bennett Xiong jumped at the opportunity for the Community School of Excellence's Hmong dance team to perform at a Minnesota Lynx game.

He mentors the dance team and helps get them in front of audiences. So when the Lynx called to ask if they'd perform at a game this Friday, Bennett Xiong said yes. That was about four weeks ago.

On Wednesday, there was a hitch he didn't expect: the Lynx sales office called and said the dancers didn't sell enough tickets, so the performance was cancelled.

Apparently, the dancers were responsible for selling some 50 tickets in exchange for performing during the game. The Lynx said deals like this are common in pro sports.

Bennett Xiong said the Lynx never made that clear. He was under the impression that the team wanted to give exposure to the Hmong community by having the dancers perform. Instead, he said, they just wanted to sell tickets using "manipulative and exploitative" tactics.

Xiong said he takes responsibility for not firming up a deal before initially agreeing to perform.

"That's where the problem was: They saw it as a sales pitch and we saw it as community relations, so we were not on the same page."

The Lynx issued a statement apologizing for "any miscommunication surrounding the performance of the CSE Hmong dance team."

Xiong said he feels "duped" and disappointed the dancers won't get to show their work.

The young dancers practice for five or six hours a day, and they usually get a few hundred dollars a gig to cover expenses.

"We never had to pay to perform and we're not going to start now," Xiong said. "We're doing you (the Lynx) a favor; you came to us."

After Xiong made a Facebook post critical of the Lynx on Wednesday night, a team representative called him and invited the dancers to perform regardless of ticket sales. They declined.

On Thursday, Bennett Xiong met with the dancers to explain what happened. He outlined it in another Facebook post and recorded a video of the routine dancers would've performed at the Lynx game: