On his Last Week Tonight show Sunday night, John Oliver vowed to put "riff raff" in the premium seats right behind the home plate of Yankee Stadium.
Two days later, he more than made good on that vow when two fans dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sat in the exclusive Legends seats to see the Bronx Bombers' Opening Day matchup against the Houston Astros.
What's best about it is the two fans — identified as John Welch and Joe Spilo by Newsday — were in plain sight right behind home plate for the national broadcast on ESPN. They won Oliver's contest by using the Twitter hashtag #IHaveNeverSatInAPremiumLocation.
The prank came in response to Oliver's scathing rant over Yankees COO Lonn Trost, who implied that fans who purchase tickets on StubHub for under their true value have no right to sit next to ones who pay full price.
"The problem below market at a certain point is that if you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money," Trost said on the WFAN sports radio station in February, as reported by the New York Daily News. "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 a ticket and [another] fan picks it up for a buck-and-a-half and sits there, and it's frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount.
"And quite frankly, the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location," he added. "So that's a frustration to our existing fan base."
To that, Oliver shredded Trost and the Yankees via a scathing rant.
"Wow! Wow! He's saying rich people couldn't bear to sit next to people who aren't as rich, which would be offensive if you were talking about the opera, much less a sport whose primary fashion statement is the goatee," Oliver said as part of the hilarious segment.
Oliver vowed to sell Legends seat tickets for "just 25 cents" on the condition that the contest winners dress like they've "never sat in a premium location."
We guess that includes Ninja Turtles ... Donatello and Michaelangelo, at least.
After the rant and before seeing the Ninja Turtles sitting behind home plate, the Yankees attempted to do some damage control over Trost's obnoxious comments.
"Everyone is welcome at Yankee Stadium," Yankees president Randy Levine told ESPN on Monday. "And I thank John Oliver for buying Yankees tickets."
So do we, Randy. This epic prank will live on for years to come.
