To Jesse Cole, the Disneyland parade for the Savannah Bananas was more than a common honor for athletes at the peak of their game.
He’s the founder of the wild spin on baseball that’s one of sport’s hottest tickets. Cole will remember that May 28 stroll down Main Street USA as a moment to reflect on the Anaheim theme park’s creator. That’s because Walt Disney is a major inspiration for Cole’s offbeat Banana Ball.
“You have to disrupt yourself,” says the 41-year-old Cole, who turned a traditional summer team for college athletes based in Georgia into a touring show that’s filling stadiums across the nation.
Walt Disney’s embrace of television in the 1950s, when much of Hollywood was skeptical of the emerging medium, is a go-against-the-grain motivation for Cole.
“He saw where TV was going while everyone thought it would kill the movie business,” Cole says of Disney’s TV decision that helped grow the brand.
Similarly, Cole’s Banana Ball – sort of a variety show meshed with a baseball game – uses social media, the latest breakthrough communication platform, to boost its brand to 26 million online followers.
“We saw where the world is going and said we’re going to create that way, instead of relying on broadcast rights or any way it used to be done,” Cole says.
It’s a family-owned business that decidedly dances to its own beat. There are four teams – the original Bananas plus three with distinct personas: the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and the new Texas Tailgaters. The Bananas’ tour extends to California twice: a just-concluded Anaheim Stadium visit and then San Diego’s Petco Field in September.
To the fan, Cole’s selling something like traditional baseball. Two teams battle with an altered set of rules. It’s competitive, as the Bananas lost 19 of their first 36 games this season.
Though it’s the twists that broaden the appeal. Consider trick plays – from behind-the-back tosses to backflip catches. A 10-foot pitcher on stilts. A cameo substitution from a celebrity or local sports hero.
Did we mention the players dancing – or even the umpires? Or the “dad-bod” cheerleaders? Plus, there’s numerous chances to interact with players – before, after and even during the game.
And like Walt Disney hosted Disney’s early TV ventures, there’s Cole – dressed in a banana-yellow tuxedo and top hat – serving as an on-field emcee.
Cole speaks of how Banana Ball is constantly tweaking itself, much like Walt Disney said Disneyland will never be finished.
“It’s a living, breathing thing,” Cole said. “And he called Disneyland a show because he looked at it that way.”
“You can watch a Disney movie, but when you get into Disneyland, you feel something different. Our goal is that, for every single pitch, every moment, and every out, there’s something.”
Look, this is only the third year of full-time Banana Ball competition. Four teams will play 107 games in 39 cities this year, drawing more than 2 million fans. The team charges $35 to $60 a seat, sold through a lottery – by the way, it’s independent ticket resellers that balloon prices.
Simple math says Cole has built a $100 million-plus endeavor. The following Q&A with the top banana, done just before his team’s Anaheim games, is edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. What keeps you up at night?
A. I constantly think about what’s next. How do you keep the core of who we are and what we stand for, and how do you spread it?
We’ve grown from just four people and a small ballpark in Savannah to performing in front of millions of fans. (His road crew runs 150 people, including players.)
How do we make sure we keep pushing the envelope? I don’t want fans ever to get bored. In every show, we are doing 10 to 15 things we’ve never done in front of a live crowd.
You’re experimenting as the world tries to pull you back to being normal. I want to push through that every single day.
Q. You must have a bean counter who bugs you about business stuff?
A. Luckily, I don’t. No shareholders, no one else.
Every day, I get emails suggesting I bring on financial partners. But I work for one person. That’s the fan, and that’s not cliche. It’s not 2 million fans. I work for one fan at a time.
If I were trying to appease shareholders, we would have ticket fees (when the team directly sells tickets to its fans). We would work with the ticket resellers. We would increase our prices dramatically. Tickets sometimes go over $1,000 on those services. We don’t profit from that at all.
We would have sponsorships everywhere. We don’t have that.
Every decision we would make would be different.
Q. But you still have to be profitable.
A. We’re healthy, yeah. The reality is, I haven’t even looked at our bank account.
I know we’re healthy because when you sell out every single game, and fans want to wear your merchandise proudly, we’re doing fine.
Do we need to make an extra 5-10-20 million dollars?
Q. Is merchandise a big part of economic success?
A. It does very well for us. Our business model is tickets and merchandise. That’s it. And so you keep it simple. You create a product that people want to pay for.
TV rights? We do everything for free on YouTube. Our games on ESPN are non-exclusive deals. They’re also on YouTube for free for our fans at the same time.
Q. So you don’t squeeze out the last dollar?
A. Most businesses are focused on the next quarter, right? We’re focused on the next quarter-century and beyond.
I’m thinking in 5-10-15-20-25 years, do we still have these fans? When you know what you stand for, it makes decisions very easy. It’s always fans first for us.
Q. Fads come and go. Can the Bananas avoid that?
A. People might say World Wrestling Entertainment peaked in the 80s with Hulk Hogan selling out with 90,000 fans. But now they’re even more popular because they continue to create storylines and make each show interesting. They push the envelope.
That’s what we have to do. I want to look back a year from now, look at tonight’s show, and not believe that’s all we did.
Now, wrestling is controversial in a way because there’s a script to it. When you think of basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters, everything’s scripted.
Banana Ball never knows who’s gonna win. The only thing we script is the entertainment.
Q. What else can you innovate?
A. We’re playing in football stadiums now. We’ll play in places people never imagined. We won’t know how to do it, but that’s exciting.
You could do beaches, Central Park, or the desert. The goal isn’t how much money you make but how you create an epic experience. Then anything is open.
Cricket stadiums. Soccer stadiums. Why can’t we do a backyard wiffle ball game? Why can’t we show up with just three Bananas and have a game?
Q. As the boss, is it hard to see things go wrong in an innovative culture?
A. Every night, things go wrong. I’m not gonna go start screaming. I’ll say, “How do we make it better tomorrow?” Then we go out and do it.
Failure is part of what we do. It’s what’s built us. We’re not afraid of it.
I don’t even like the word failure, because failure is just part of the process.
Q. What’s the player’s performance measurement?
A: If you want to stay in our organization, are you creating fan moments?
Yes, you need to play. You gotta be able to perform. But that’s not number one. That’s a piece of the puzzle.
They’re not the best baseball players, but they’re the most entertaining players in the world. There’s a difference.
We don’t need them to throw 97 miles an hour. We need them to be able to do tricks, have fun, celebrate, entertain, and get in the crowd.
They can play, but throw in all the entertaining, all the fans, all the fun. They’re doing something many people in the world can’t do. That’s what makes it special.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]
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