Fun, family and fans first philosophy propels Banana Ball to new heights of popularity.
Imagine Apple
The Coles reimagined professional baseball and turned it into a successful and constantly evolving sport they named Banana Ball.
They transformed a summer collegiate team into a nationwide touring entity that has an extensive, multi-million dollar travel budget, a dedicated YouTube broadcast channel, and a multiple-year waitlist for game tickets.
No longer a “best kept secret,” the Savannah Bananas have steadily grown their popularity through intentional planning that begins and ends with a fan first philosophy, a thorough understanding of their market and an agility to pivot when needed.
The Bananas social media presence is impressive, with 2.6 million Instagram followers, 1.34 million YouTube channel subscribers, 2.3 million Facebook followers, 200,000 X followers and millions of TikTok views.
MORE FOR YOU
Their season runs from February – October, with regular season home games at Savannah’s historic Gray/son Stadium.
In 2023, the inaugural Banana Ball World Tour, featuring the Savannah Bananas team versus their rivals, the Party Animals, played 86 games in 33 ballparks, in front of more than a half million fans. They were even recognized at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, where a special Bananas exhibit was displayed and the teams played a game at Doubleday Field.
The 26-city, 2024 World Tour is even more ambitious, and includes games at six Major League ballparks. Following a sellout at Houston’s Minute Maid Park that drew 41,000 fans, Banana Ball will take the field at Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia), Nationals Park (Washington, DC), historic Fenway Park (Boston) Progressive Field (Cleveland) and loanDepot Park in Miami.
According to Jesse Cole, the Bananas will entertain one million fans this year.
Not everybody is a fan, and that’s just fine with the Coles.
Says Emily, “You know, if you want to see traditional baseball, great. And we're not trying to take away from that. We think we're just growing the sport because we are for other fans who might not want to sit through a four-hour baseball game. But, it's not mutually exclusive. You can love baseball and you can love the Bananas, too.”
Fans first
The Coles acquired the team in 2015, and began adding entertainment to the game in 2018. Although they consistently sold out Savannah’s Grayson Stadium, fans still left early. Jesse calls that the “game changer” that led to the invention of Show Ball and, ultimately, Banana Ball and the World Tours.
He began writing down ideas – every inning is a game within the game; fans catch a foul ball for an out; batters cannot step out of the box; players are ejected for bunting (“because it’s boring!”); more dancing and crowd engagement. And perhaps the biggest game changer of them all, a strict two-hour game clock.
“Many of the 11 rules that we have today came from an idea session back in 2018,” he recalls.
When not on the field or in the stands, wearing his ubiquitous yellow tuxedo and top hat, Jesse is studying, sharing or writing.
He has seven or eight idea books and has been writing 10 ideas every day since 2018.
“So that's probably 12,000 really bad ideas,” he admits. “But there's about 3,000 decent ones in there.”
His original 2018 idea book was actually part of the National Baseball Hall of Fame display.
Eclectic barely begins to describe some of characters who were born from idea books and Over The Top (OTT) meetings. There are the Banana Nanas, the grandma dance team and their counterparts, the Man-Nanas, or Dad Bod Cheerleading Squad; Vincent Chapman, the dancing umpire; the Young Professor emcee; and players like Archer, rodeo clown trick pitcher Mat Wolf, guitar-playing Dan Obserst, DC the Invader, and 10-foot tall Stilts, who bats and pitches.
A Banana Baby is selected each game; Princess Potassia enchants little princesses from the crowd; singalongs and dance routines are constant; and trick plays are non-stop, even tracked on the stadium scoreboard. In 2023, both teams completed over 600 trick plays on tour. It is a complete, 2-hour sensory overload within an actual baseball game.
But Cole would probably agree with Steve Jobs who said, “I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things."
The Coles’ company, Fans First Entertainment, is a brand promise that drives all things Bananas. It’s a commitment that permeates the organization top to bottom, and is displayed on a daily basis.
Much like the process at Saturday Night Live, ideas are pitched, discussed, adopted, tabled or discarded during weekly OTT meetings. Unlike SNL, however, the Bananas come up with new entertainment segments for multiple games per week.
Jesse explains, “The reality is every gameday we do two hours of rehearsals, and we're going to do 15 to 20 things we've never done in front of a live crowd. So in an entire season, you're talking about 1,500 to 2,000 brand new things that never happened before.”
Adds Emily, “And it keeps it fresh and exciting for fans and all of us. To keep everybody really engaged and excited about the next project, every single day is completely different.”
She emphasizes that there is no room for complacency in Bananaland.
“We want people to say, ‘you never know what will happen tonight’ or ‘I can't believe what happened tonight.’ ”
They are keenly aware that attending a Savannah Bananas game has become a bucket list item for fans, many of whom have lingered on a ticket wait list for years.
“Every game is someone’s first game. And we have to make it an unbelievable experience,” Jesse insists. “We know there's going to be 15,000 new people and this might be the first and only time they get to see us.”
Although it’s a seven-figure investment, even the live YouTube game broadcasts are commercial free, another nod to the fans first commitment and a focus on long term fans over short term profits.
Failure is an option
Like SNL, not everything makes the gametime cut. And sometimes, things simply don’t land.
But the Coles embrace failure as a necessary component of success.
“I truly believe that if we hadn't had some of the failures or mishaps then we wouldn't be where we are,” explains Emily. “But we're small enough still and agile enough still that we can pivot and go in a different direction.”
She adds, “For us, it's such a learning opportunity that we want those (failures) to happen because it helps us learn what to do differently the next time and it makes the next one that much better.”
The Coles also value control. They learned on the job how to do merchandise, travel, operations, human resources, broadcast media, ticketing and sponsorship.
Says Jesse, “We realize, anything that touches our fans deserves our 100% attention. And so if we outsource any of that, we lose what we have that's special And so we will go through the messiness.”
Banana for a day
Part of the fun attending a Bananas game is the surprise appearance of celebrities and guest players, who have the opportunity to play the game again like they did as kids, for fun of it.
Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Johnny Gomes, Eric Byrnes, Jake Peavey, Josh Reddick, Shane Victorino, Nick Swisher and Hunter Pence are just a few who have donned the Banana yellow.
One of the most memorable moments was when Jesse surprised the team with actor John Cena, who suited up in a Bananas uni.
“I couldn’t believe it,” says Jesse. “The guys were freaking out.”
He won’t admit to a favorite guest, instead draws attention to the interactions and enjoyment expressed by the visitors.
“It's more just the whole thing behind it, the players, their families. To have it all come together because of something that we created is pretty special.”
The most recent celebrity guest player is Team
She jokingly says, “I am in Banana Land and nothing could go wrong in Banana Land.”
Play ball
Banana Ball teams are not just for show. The players are serious competitors and talented players who have collegiate and/or minor league baseball experience. Each brings his own persona and skills to the team and is offered the chance to contribute creatively to the game.
A Banana Ball player tryout is really a fan first tryout, explains Jesse.
“It’s easy to say, oh, let's go find someone that's the best baseball player. But we look for genuinely positive, happy, outgoing people that are really good with other people and who understand that you know our job is to bring joy.”
They may not be dancers when they arrive, but first base coach/hip hop choreographer Maceo Harrison gets players on their toes quickly. Harrison, who has been with the team since 2018, choreographs a new dance every night and guides even those with two left feet.
It’s an understatement when he says, “I know not everybody's a dancer. So I'm going to make you look good. We’re all going to look good together and just have a fun time. I always say, hey, when in doubt, just twerk it out.”
Second-year Party Animal Jake Lialios, a Tucson native whose collegiate pitching career at Pomona-Pitzer College was cut short by COVID, adapted enthusiastically to the vibe, especially the Party Animals sleeveless aesthetic and team camaraderie .
“They do a really good job of handpicking people who are good fits for all of this,” he says of the Coles. “I think it takes a special kind of person to buy into this in the first place.“
Bananas and Party Animals hold their own OTT meetings and generally come up with three to five gimmicks per game.
Explains Jesse, “It keeps players thinking and working their idea muscle. You know, most players, they work their baseball muscles at the gym, but now they're working their idea muscle to come up with new ideas that can create a better fan experience.”
Bananas Foster
Jesse and Emily have created a family-oriented passion project, Bananas Foster, to celebrate the positives of the foster care world, while also bringing awareness to the dire need for foster families.
As long time foster parents themselves, they recently completed the adoption process for their two little girls and are now using their platform to stand for something they believe in deeply.
“We want Bananas Foster to align with who the Bananas are as an organization,” explains Emily. “And that is putting joy out in the world, right? How can we be a non-profit that does the same type of thing? So we focus on celebrating these families.”
Each night, a foster family and their kids are recognized on field at a Bananas game, where they are wrapped in a group hug with members of the Bananas and Party Animals, and cheered by fans in the stands.
“By celebrating these amazing people every night in front of crowds of 15,000, now you've got all these eyeballs who didn’t know about foster care, who are now learning about it.”
May is National Foster Care Month and the Coles’ dream is to have enough foster homes across the country that every child who comes into care has not only a place to go, but a place that is well matched.
According to Emily, about 50% of foster families quit after their first placement or within the first year. Because of the lack of available homes, the same families are called over and over with requests to take another child. The family honored in Mesa, for example, is fostering 11 kids in their home.
Bananas Foster is still in the rollout stage, and the Coles are already integrating it fully into the Bananas family.
Over one billion served...someday
Steve Jobs famously said, “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
The Coles have changed baseball and, according to Jesse, “If we have the opportunity to entertain 1 billion fans and take this all over the world, not for anything about fame, glory, financial success, but solely to bring joy, everything else will work out. And I would say that's a pretty successful life.”
