Royals put their scoreboard to good use with 105-foot tall game of Mario Kart

Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals franchise didn’t have a great 2018, finishing fifth in their division with a record of 58 wins and 104 losses. The good news is that Mario came in first yesterday, raising his fist in triumph above their home field at Kauffman Stadium.

News of Mario’s stunning victory comes courtesy of Kansas City’s ABC affiliate, KCTV. In a tweet from sports interpreter Tom Martin, turns out that the KCTV news copter caught somebody using the Royals’ 105-foot tall, 85-foot wide electronic scoreboard for a session of Mario Kart 8. The clip has been viewed more than one million times already on Twitter.

Fans of Mario, and of the Royals, feared the worst on Twitter. Perhaps someone on the Royals’ staff was just goofing around and got caught in the most public way possible. As it turns out, this was simply a charity fundraising event, and a dry run for a potential charity auction.

The Royals Charities has been in existence since 2001. An officially sanctioned part of the Royals organization, the nonprofit’s mission is to “support children, education, youth baseball and softball field renovations and military families in and around the Kansas City area.” In 2017 alone it contributed more than $2.3 million to 143 organizations.

According to a tweet posted by Martin, you may soon be able to bid on a video game party at Kauffman Stadium, where fans will be able to play the game of their choice on the one-of-a-kind “CrownVision” system.

The Royals’ opening day is scheduled for March 28. No word yet on when the video game party might be.