On May 4, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” featured an in-depth segment on Minor League Baseball promotions, which concluded with an offer that teams couldn’t refuse.
“We are willing to use all our resources and stupidity to give one Minor League Baseball team a total rebrand,” said Oliver. “We will give you a new team name. A new mascot. We will even throw you a theme night. It will be personalized and it will be bespoke.”
Forty-seven teams contacted the show in the wake of this offer, which included the caveat that “You can’t ask us any questions, give us any notes and you have to do what we come up with.”
On Sunday's episode, after analyzing the submissions of a half-dozen would-be contenders, Oliver announced his selection.
“The Erie SeaWolves in Erie, Pennsylvania. They wrote to us with a list of 11 good reasons to pick them, one of which was ‘The SeaWolves play baseball nowhere near the sea,’” said Oliver. “That’s a problem, Erie. We can help you fix that.”
“Congratulations to the SeaWolves, you’re about to be called something else,” he continued. “We are going to research your area and come up with a new name, mascot and theme night for you that nobody else in the league has and that can only come from Erie. As per our original offer, you will get no input into this. … You will take what we have and you will like it. All you have to do is sign your contract. I promise this is going to be great.”
The SeaWolves are the Double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, though their pirate-themed branding dates to the Pittsburgh partnership that preceded it. Team president Greg Coleman, reached by phone Monday afternoon, has no doubts that the SeaWolves' impending collaboration with John Oliver and company will be great. But right now, he says that “there are a lot more questions than answers.”
“We’ve had a lot of media inquiries, starting with the local media, and we have to tell them we would also like to know what’s going on,” he said. “So far [the fan reaction] is as expected. Lots of differing opinions, from 'terrible' to 'great' to ‘Where can I suggest a team name?’”
As Oliver mentioned, the SeaWolves submitted a list to the show: “11 nearly perfect reasons to choose Erie.” In addition to playing baseball nowhere near the sea -- although, of course, Lake Erie is nearby -- the list included plenty of what Coleman called “deeper cuts.”
“We’ve done some things promotionally over the years that I think the audience would be interested in, going back to Alternative Facts Night,” he said. “And [Oliver] recently mentioned Erie on [another segment of] his show, where he said that he knew only one thing about Erie. We can teach him a lot more.”
Other selling points included the SeaWolves’ proximity to the National Comedy Center in Lucille Ball’s birthplace of Jamestown, N.Y., which Coleman called a “satellite market for us.” He also pointed out that the head of Erie’s tourism board is named, you guessed it, John Oliver.
Anything is possible at this point, but Coleman said he expects the “Last Week Tonight” rebrand to be more of a single-day event than a total long-term overhaul of the franchise’s identity.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he said. “This is a unique opportunity to tell people that Erie has a baseball team and is a great place to live, work and play. If you don’t take chances like this then you can’t set yourself up for the possible opportunities that come from it.”