Why this team is driving people absolutely Bananas

What started with a test run at Lander University in 2018 became a once-in-a-while exhibition for the team that won the collegiate Coastal Plain League in 2021 and ’22. Eventually, Banana Ball was so successful that in 2023, the team left the CPL to focus on Banana Ball full time, launching a 33-city, 22-state tour in February. The team currently has a ticket waitlist of more than half a million and over 5.8 million followers on TikTok, more than the top seven MLB teams combined.

Perhaps just as wacky as the team’s brand of play is its revenue model: no in-stadium advertising and no traditional sponsorship deals, though in February the team announced that Zappos will be its exclusive footwear partner. The Bananas generate revenue solely from ticket sales, food and beverage sales, and merchandise, of which it amasses more than $10 million in sales annually.

To combat scalpers and the secondary market and to protect fans from ticketing fees and taxes, the Bananas built their own ticketing platform. Earlier this year, Cole turned down a $1 million bulk ticket order, which included purchasing tickets to every game on the 2023 tour at twice the face value. It would have resulted in $500,000 of extra profit for the Bananas, but Cole says he didn’t consider the offer for a second.

“I’m not focused on the next quarter; I’m focused on the next quarter century,” said Cole. “I’m not focused on short-term profits; I’m focused on long-term fans. I mean, we’re the only team in the world that pays your taxes. A $25 ticket is $25. We pay seven figures-plus in taxes [for fans] that we don’t have to pay, but it’s who we are and what we stand for. When every decision is guided by, ‘Is it fans-first?” it’s a no-brainer why I turned down $1 million from a ticket reseller.”

Bananas tickets are also all-inclusive. A $25 ticket comes with all-you-can-eat hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, chips, popcorn, water and soda, making it easier and less expensive for families to attend games. Beer and additional food items can be purchased at concessions.

It’s all a part of the Banana’s fan-first approach and the general ethos that guides Cole’s thinking.

“Whatever’s normal,” he says, “do the exact opposite.”

Cole grew up on baseball, eventually becoming a standout pitcher at Wofford College. He started 40-plus games for the Terriers and was described as an outstanding competitor and a hard thrower with excellent command. But he remembers his college days differently.

“I took the game too seriously,” said Cole. “I wasn’t out there having fun. I put so much pressure on myself to live up to my scholarship, and I didn’t perform as well as I should have.”

Cole had MLB scouts looking at him, but his shoulder injury ended any hopes of going pro. Instead, he parlayed a front-office intern gig with the Gastonia Grizzlies of the CPL into a role as general manager. Rather than learning from other executives, Cole read books on Walt Disney, P.T. Barnum, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. He studied the business of the WWE, the Grateful Dead, and Cirque du Soleil.

“I’m fascinated by companies that create fans and that do things so differently than everyone else that people just love them,” said Cole. “Walt Disney said, ‘Money doesn’t excite me; my ideas excite me,’ and I’m very similar. I’m focused on ideas and what we’re going to do next.”

Cole applied this thinking to the Grizzlies and took attendance from 200 per game to more than 2,000 with promotions like Flatulence Fun Night, where they gave away whoopee cushions at the gate and had a farting contest on the field. The team also hosted Salute to Underwear Night, where if anyone wore their underwear on the outside of their pants they got a free ticket. When George W. Bush’s term as President was over, the Grizzlies offered him an internship.

Cole’s promotions were successful enough that, after the 2014 season, he was named CPL Executive of the Year. He purchased the team that fall, but not before proposing to his wife, Emily, in front of a sold-out crowd while wearing his now-signature yellow tux. That same night, his new fiancée surprised him with an impromptu trip to Savannah the following weekend, where they attended a Single-A game at Grayson Stadium, at the time home to the Savannah Sand Gnats, a New York Mets affiliate.

“We walked into the stadium and I fell in love,” said Cole. “It was this 1926 ballpark, brick columns, you feel the history—and yet there was less than 200 people at the game and it was the deadest environment I’ve ever seen at a baseball game.”

Cole vowed that if the team ever left Savannah and Grayson Stadium became available, he’d bring a team there. A year later, the Sand Gnats threatened to move the team if the city didn’t approve a new $38 million stadium. The city rejected the idea, and the club relocated to Columbia, South Carolina, after the 2015 season, opening the door for Cole to fulfill his vision.

The Coles signed a lease at Grayson Stadium, raised money for a new franchise, and built out a roster of collegiate players to join the CPL, hiring employees and pouring money into the stadium for repairs and upgrades along the way. You wouldn’t know it from where they sit today, but the road was long and littered with challenges.

“I remember the call at 4:45 p.m. on Friday, January 15, 2016, that said we were gonna miss payroll,” said Cole. “We over-drafted our account and we were out of money. We had to sell our house and we were sleeping on an air bed and grocery shopping on $30 a week. That’s all we had.”

“We weren’t selling tickets,” he added. “We were selling like everyone else, promoting like everyone else, marketing like everyone else, and failing like everyone else—actually much worse—until we said, ‘We’re gonna go all in on creating attention and being different.’”

All this happened before they had even named the team. So, in the spirit of creating attention, the Coles put on a naming contest. More than 1,000 people submitted names, but one name got the gears in Cole’s head turning. The moment he saw Savannah Bananas, the ideas began flooding in. They would name the mascot “Split.” They could have a senior-citizen dance team called the Banana-Nanas. Their slogan could be “Go Bananas.”

With so much creative ammunition, the Coles felt they had no choice and, on February 15, 2016, they announced the new team name, instantly becoming the top trending topic on Twitter.

But not everybody shared their enthusiasm.

Savannah locals, in particular, fired back, calling the name embarrassing, ridiculous, and insulting, while others said, “Whoever came up with that name should be fired and ridden out of town,” and that, “Maybe Savannah was better off with no team at all.”

But in the Bananas’s case, the famous quote from one of Cole’s favorite innovators, P.T. Barum, rang true: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

And on opening night of the Bananas’ inaugural season, Grayson Stadium packed in a sold-out crowd of 4,000 fans.

That was in 2016.

They’ve sold out every game since.

Cole still recalls the first time he asked players to do a choreographed dance back in Gastonia.

“They didn’t want to do it,” he said. “I only got a few that actually danced, and the first few games it was the same four guys that danced every single game. But they were signing more autographs. They were getting more cheers. They became the most popular players. So then, all of a sudden, more guys wanted to do it.”

At the beginning, the Bananas didn’t have tryouts. They held auditions. There was a dance station, a TikTok station, a talent station—plus baseball. Cole doesn’t call it a roster, he calls it a cast. The Bananas have a singer from Nashville playing second base. They have jugglers, dancers, balancing acts, and other performers playing different positions all over the field. Cole says he recently had a call with a contortionist. “Why wouldn’t I have a contortionist try to coach first and come up to bat?” he said. “That only makes sense to me.”

Today, the Bananas travel with 125-plus people every weekend. They have OTT (over-the-top) meetings every Monday in which players and staff pitch their wildest ideas for consideration—ideas that turn something like a walk, the most mundane part of the game, into perhaps the most exciting.

In Banana Ball, when the umpire calls Ball Four, the batter breaks into a full sprint around the bases with the goal of running as far as he can before every member of the defense touches the ball. After that, standard baserunning procedures apply and the runner must reach the base before being tagged out.

It’s plays like these that often go viral on social media, which is why the team spends zero dollars on marketing, instead relying heavily on social media and content creation to generate buzz. Marketing Director Kara Heater spends each game in the press box surveying the action from above, noting in her Excel spreadsheet every time she sees something that could be a piece of content for social media. They publish content during the game, and afterward, the marketing and video teams meet to share the content they got from the night and build out a content calendar.

It’s their social media fame that has many calling them the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball.

“That’s super flattering because the Harlem Globetrotters completely changed the game of basketball,” said Heater. “But the biggest difference is that we have competition. It’s not a rigged game. The Globetrotters win every single game. You’re not going to see the Bananas win every single game.”

This season, the Bananas play exclusively against its sister club, the Party Animals, with the exception of a few exhibition games along the way.

“Both teams are equally as competitive, and they want to win,” said Heater. “All these guys played professionally and at one point played collegiate. They are here to play baseball. But they also understand the impact that having fun can have while they’re playing the game, and I think that’s the biggest difference.”

The Bananas are currently losing the season series to the Party Animals, but having sold out every game and featuring guest appearances from former American League MVP Dustin Pedroia and former Cy Young winners Jake Peavy and Eric Gagne along the way, the Bananas are clearly still winning. This past weekend, the team sold out Legends Field in Tampa, Florida, playing in front of more than 10,000 fans.

Cole has his sights set on one day filling an MLB stadium, and as Heater explains, the Bananas vs. Party Animals rivalry may be just the beginning of something much bigger.

“The ultimate goal is to grow the game of Banana Ball,” she said. “In the future, I think the goal is to have a league and teams across the nation. But obviously, we’re a ways out from that. This is our first year of full-fledged Banana Ball, and we’ll see how this thing goes and how we can take it to the next level.”