John Oliver Fans Watch Yankees Game Dressed As Unicorns
Two fans of John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight attended a Yankees game in the VIP section dressed as unicorns at Wednesday’s game, and another two dressed as Katy Perry’s left and right shark from her Superbowl performance, according to Yahoo Sports.
That was the follow up to what happened at Tuesday’s Yankees game, where a group dressed as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That may seem like an odd thing to do, but it was intentionally odd.
John Oliver explained in his April 3 episode of Last Week Tonight that the executives for the Yankees are very particular about who sits in the seats for the “Legends Club,” a luxury baseball viewing area, and they don’t want people who aren’t used to sitting in VIP areas getting those seats.
He got this from Yankees COO Lonn Trost, who tried to explain in a radio interview why the Yankees don’t let people print tickets at home anymore, which would make it easier to resell the ticket online.
“If you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money, it’s not that we don’t want that fan to sell it, but that fan is sitting there having paid a substantial amount of money for their ticket, and a fan picks it up for a buck and a half and sits there,” Yankees COO Lonn Trost said in an interview with WFAN. “And it frustrates the purchaser of the full amount, and quite frankly, the same, the fan, may be someone who’s never sat in a premium location, so that’s a frustration to our existing fan base.”
Essentially, John Oliver decided, Trost was saying that “rich people couldn’t bare to sit next to people who aren’t as rich.” This “elitism,” as Oliver put it, wasn’t sitting well with him. Oliver pointed out that often these kinds of seats are left empty to avoid the wrong people sitting there, but he decided they wouldn’t be empty on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night, because the show bought several tickets and sold them to fans who would dress the craziest for only 25 cents a ticket.
Also, I believe the 2 females in the shark costumes are dressed as Katy Perry's left and right sharks. pic.twitter.com/azidY10Nop
— Peter Botte (@PeterBotte) April 6, 2016
Hannah Lee and Michelle Munera were the names of the people dressed as unicorns, and Ashley Lewis and Jennifer Sedgley dressed as the sharks, according to New York Daily News.
To get the Yankees tickets, they had to use the hashtag #IHaveNeverSatInAPremiumLocation and show a photo of two people dressed in a way that would surely anger the Yankees executives.
The tickets typically retail for $1,000, but John Oliver sold them for 25 cents each, because he wanted to make sure the “riff raff” could afford them, as Oliver put it.
Guests who visit the Yankees Legends club also get free food and free non-alcoholic drinks, private restrooms, a private entrance, a personal concierge service, and more. John Oliver made fun of all these amenities by pointing out that it’s not the opera, and the main fashion statement coming from baseball is that many of the players like to have a goatee.
We’ll have to wait and see what the fans will wear for Thursday’s Yankees game, as John Oliver bought tickets for the first three Yankees games. We can be sure it will be pretty interesting.
[Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images]
