Savannah Bananas in Yankee Stadium? Owner wants to see games in MLB stadiums, billion fans

Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole is always looking for ways to give the fans more.

More entertainment, more value, more new and better experiences at the ballpark.

It's been a business philosophy that's helped make the Bananas baseball franchise a phenomenon, selling out Grayson Stadium at 4,000-plus spectators months in advance for six-plus years.

That popularity spurred a spinoff from the original Bananas, who since 2016 have played in the Coastal Plain League — a collegiate summer league with traditional nine-inning games — and won titles in 2016, 2021 and, as of last Friday, in 2022. The Savannah Bananas Premier Team is a separate professional travel squad that this spring sold out 14 exhibition games in Savannah and six other cities by playing their unorthodox "Banana Ball" format.

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Regardless of which bunch is playing, the games have the Bananas' brand of a nonstop mix of entertainment and baseball, and interactions with fans before, during and after games with singing, dancing, silly promotions and more. The players are all in, and videos of their antics have made the Bananas social media sensations with millions of followers.

The fans want more. The waiting list of requests for single-game tickets grew from about 30,000 in May to about 75,000 last week, according to the team. Each request could be for multiple tickets.

That ratio of supply and demand means the fans are asking for a lot more than the Bananas can deliver under the current structure.

"That's why we're going to add more cities, more games, look for more opportunities," Cole said in a June 27 interview. "I believe we'll play in front of a million fans by 2030."

Cole said the emphasis is on creating fans, not increasing profits.

"You don't focus on the next quarter; you focus on the next quarter century," he said.

"Everyone's like, 'Do you have a goal?' Yeah, I'd like to be a billion-fan brand. I want to have a billion fans with a B. ... That's crazy. You say a billion-dollar company. I'd rather be a billion-fan team. We're going to have to get all over the world to do that."

Cole declined to this week to fuel speculation on the future of the highly successful collegiate squad, which successfully defended its CPL title in the Petitt Cup championship series over the weekend. The West Division champion, the playoffs' second seed, defeated the third-seeded Wilson Tobs 8-3 on Thursday night in North Carolina and 11-0 on Friday night at Grayson Stadium to sweep the best-of-three series.

The CPL regular season runs from the end of May to the end of July, and teams have 24 home games on their slates.

More games in 2023

Cole did say in the June interview that expanding the schedule for the Premier Team and their foil the Party Animals could mean 25 games or more in 2023. Cole has had conversations with big-league organizations to stage exhibitions at their ballparks and gets calls weekly from representatives of cities across the country.

For the native of Scituate, Massachusetts, one park comes to mind, Fenway, where he was a bat boy and played in college, but Cole said others had to this point shown more interest.

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Expanding Grayson Stadium would cut somewhat into that generational waiting list. Cole said he would like to install bleachers but it's not that simple because of increased spectator numbers stressing parking and restroom capacities.

"The smallest (stadium) capacity these people will ever see is what they're seeing the last six years," Cole, whose team sells 4,500 tickets for each game, said in June. "In the future, we will have larger capacities. I don't know when that's happening. I focus on what I can control. What I can control right now is the tour, Banana Ball and those games. I can't control the stadium. There are just too many moving pieces at this point."

So more Banana Ball games, such as those coming Aug. 19-20, Aug. 26-27 and Sept. 1-2 (all sold out), will help. Expect more seasonal series over the calendar year.

"Some people don't like Banana Ball," Cole, 38, said in June. "But do I believe it's the future? One thousand percent, because I watch the fans. In a Banana Ball game, fans don't leave the game early."

While detractors may take issue with Banana Ball rules staining the purity of the game, other fans are attracted to the faster tempo and increased action in a two-hour time limit, as well as the lack of league regulations. Banana Ball games still revolve around balls and strikes, hitting and pitching, baserunning and defense between the lines. Outside the lines, almost all bets are off and the creative possibilities are wide open.

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Banana Ball has attracted the most attention in national print, television and online media, and it's what many fans travel from across the country to see or click online to watch.

When the collegiate squad is on the road for league games, it cannot take with it the Bananas show, and fans have expressed disappointment. And even its league home games — as entertainingly wacky as they can be — cannot match Banana Ball for an all-out assault on baseball norms.

The collegiate team was the first to play in kilts. Players perform rehearsed dance numbers between innings, do a kickline after introductions and run through the stands after scoring the Bananas' first run of the game.

The pro team — older players with college and pro experience — has featured a batter and pitcher on stilts, and trick pitcher throwing between his legs and dropping his pants, a batter with a flaming bat and TikTok dance challenges seconds before a pitch.

Star power

Former major leaguers including 75-year-old pitcher Bill Lee as well as more recent players Eric Byrnes, Jake Peavy, Jonny Gomes and Hall of Famer Johnny Bench have participated in one fashion or another.

Ivan Traczuk, the Bananas' director of creative content, said the creative team does not view as an obstacle the different set of rules for CPL and Banana Ball games.

"Restraint is a word I don't like to use. We call them challenges," Traczuk said. "Anyone besides us would go into this Coastal Plain League season and say, 'We need to take a step back and not do the things that we've been doing in Banana Ball, where we're able to kind of dictate the flow of the game.'

"Immediately, all of us looked at each other and said we're really excited for the challenge of this. How are we able to continue giving the content and energy that our fans expect in a league where we're playing baseball, No. 1, and other teams aren't necessarily in on the hijinks?"

Role as influencer

Cole, in his iconic yellow hat and tuxedo, has given corporate talks on business success by being different and focusing on the audience. In the future, the Bananas could wield greater influence as well on minor league organizations affliated with MLB teams, and even the MLB teams themselves.

In March 2021, Cole made a stop in Florida and conducted a workshop with the front office of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, an affiliate of the Miami Marlins in the Double-A Southern League.

"I'm always looking for ways to get better," said team owner Quint Studer, who has known Cole for a while. "I always like disrupters. I would call Jesse and the Savannah Bananas a real positive disrupter. What I mean by that is people that look at things a little bit differently and try things."

Studer said the Blue Wahoos cannot play by Banana Ball rules, but they can learn from the Savannah outfit's in-game promotions, use of music and other elements of the game-day experience, as well as business practices such as customer service. They already have a senior citizen dance troupe, the Silver Wahoos, like the Banana Nanas.

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"We expect to emulate a lot of what the Savannah Bananas do," said Studer, who has not heard any negative feedback about the Bananas' style, only positives about attracting both baseball fans and those seeking a fun night out. "Now as an affiliated team, we have lots of players going to the majors, but it's still, if you're going to be financially sustainable, you've got to draw the non-baseball fans as well as the baseball fans."

After a "One City World Tour" in 2021 with two soldout games in Mobile, Alabama, Banana Ball expanded the tour this spring in the Southeast as well as two games against an independent league team, the Kansas City Monarchs.

"Jesse's done a great job and has been great for baseball," Studer said. "Our fans are a little confused at times because they want to know why we can't play the Savannah Bananas."

Getting the show on the road

Why stop with the Southeast and Midwest? Traczuk said in late June that Cole is thinking Far East.

"Jesse has incredible ideas like the cruise, where we take it to other countries that love baseball," Traczuk said, "and going to Japan and these areas that have such a love for baseball, even though they're not in America. I think that'd be awesome."

Less awesome, he said, is the flipside of years of selling out games when demand is so much greater.

"The toughest thing about this job is answering a phone call and hearing someone saying, 'We're coming down from Ohio and we thought we'd be able to get tickets. Is it possible to get tickets?' I'm saying, 'I'm sorry, it's sold out,' and it's so difficult."

Traczuk said he would rather change the conversation to: "I'm sorry you can't see them in Savannah when you're here, however, next month we will be in your area, so we will come to you."

Nathan Dominitz is the Sports Content Editor of the Savannah Morning News and savannahnow.com. Email him at ndominitz@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @NathanDominitz

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Bananas owner wants games in MLB stadiums and a billion fans