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Banana Savannah Storm Fenway Park

Savannah Bananas founder and owner Jesse Cole dreamed as a child of playing for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. And this weekend, he’ll be living that dream…sort of. Instead of taking the field in a Red Sox uniform, Cole will strut out in his yellow tuxedo and bowler. In his hand, not a baseball bat, but a microphone.

Jesse Cole with fans. [Photo: The Savannah Bananas]

Instead of playing for one of baseball’s most iconic franchises, it will bring America’s greatest baseball city to “The Greatest Show in Sports,” where the Bananas will play at a sold-out Fenway Park on Saturday night as part of their 2024 World Series Tour.

If you haven’t been to Banana Ball, Cole’s fan-first, entertainment-driven production is less America’s pastime and more Globetrotters on turf. It’s a legitimate circus, complete with dancing, acrobatics, setting things on fire, and even… Players in skirts-All with some good baseball.

When I wrote about bananas last year, Cole talked about his vision for the future. Selling an MLB stadium was on the list. What Cole and his team have done since then has elevated Banana Savannah from a cultural phenomenon to a full-fledged sports and entertainment juggernaut.

[Photo: The Savannah Bananas]

Bananas on fire

Cole and his wife Emily founded Team Bananas in 2016, but the team really caught fire in 2023 with its debut Banana Ball World Tour.

The 87-game, 33-city tour that spanned 21 states expanded the team’s audience, as they went from playing in regional minor league stadiums to entertaining more than half a million fans at venues across the country with more than seven million additional viewers. From a house. It was also distinguished by the establishment of a sister club, Party animals, which roams alongside bananas as its primary competition. A year later, not content with being second bananas, Party Animals emerged as their own entity, developing their own fanbase and amassing 3.4 million followers across major social media channels.

Last year was also a year of revenue growth. Although the team did not share revenue numbers, it has established partnerships with Zappos As its official partner and exclusive partner in the field of footwear, EvoShield As the official provider of equipment and uniforms, it has carried out multiple activations with Dunkin’. These partnerships have opened up revenue streams beyond ticket and merchandise sales, as Cole continues to trickle back into the team.

[Photo: The Savannah Bananas]

Greater volatility in 2024

The 2024 Savannah Bananas tour stops in just 26 cities, but unlike the 2023 tour that only included stops at minor league stadiums and smaller venues, this year’s tour includes six major league ballparks, including Fenway this weekend.

The Bananas’ first game in an MLB stadium was in March, when they played in front of 41,000 fans at a sold-out Minute Maid Park in Houston. After Fenway, the Bananas are scheduled to play at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., in July, followed by Cleveland’s Progressive Stadium in August. These games are already sold out. Then, after a stop in Philadelphia in September, the 2024 tour will culminate in October with a season finale at Land Depot Park in Miami, followed by the most gigs imaginable.

The club also has a new ocean cruise dubbed “Bananas in the sea“.

Departing from Miami and in partnership with cruise charter company Sixthman and Norwegian Cruise Lines, the four-night cruise stops in the Bahamas and features everything you’d expect from a cruise experience, with a banana savannah glow. Team players will provide entertainment and fans will have opportunities to interact with them throughout the trip. It’s another big, outside-the-box idea from the Bananas Brain Trust, but it’s also another revenue driver, with prices ranging from $875 per person in a shared cabin to $15,600 for a three-bedroom suite, with tickets to the end of the season. In Miami included.

But as Cole and his team develop new revenue streams and work to grow the Bananas brand beyond baseball, they haven’t forgotten about their bread and butter.

[Photo: The Savannah Bananas]

Warming up with firefighters

Growing Banana Ball isn’t just about visiting more cities, as the introduction of Party Animals proves.

That’s why, just last week, bananas for the first time Third team firefighters. The team is led by their head coach Valerie Perez, a full-time firefighter who competed for the US Women’s National Baseball Team in 2023. Despite their debut, the firefighters already have nearly 200,000 followers on social media, including 72,000 on Instagram And 80,000 on Tik Tok.

When I spoke to Kara Heater, Cole and Bananas marketing director, last year, they hinted at the idea of ​​having a full-fledged Banana Ball league one day with teams across the country. According to Rs ColeHe often receives inquiries from entrepreneurs about forming Banana Ball teams in their cities.

With the introduction of firefighters and the interest of both fans and potential partners, it appears that a full-fledged Banana Ball league could be within reach one day.

[Photo: The Savannah Bananas]

Baseball goes bananas

Just over eight years after making their debut in front of 4,000 fans at sold-out Grayson Stadium in Savannah, the Bananas have sold out ever since. That includes this weekend’s game at Fenway. The team previously played in front of half a million fans in 2024, a number expected to exceed one million by the end of the year. Their ticket waiting list now stands at over two million tickets. Meanwhile, Banana’s social accounts have swelled to more than 13.6 million followers (not including 1.42 million YouTube subscribers), including 8.5 million followers. On TikTok alone.

But while the viability of the team and product is now undeniable, the ripple effects on baseball itself are beginning to become apparent.

Major League Baseball has taken cues from Banana Ball, which emphasizes speed of play and maximizes action and entertainment on the field. While MLB cannot compete with the entertainment element, it has implemented rules in the past two years to increase the speed of the game. It has also made on-field adjustments, such as making the bases larger to encourage more stealing and eliminating turnovers to allow more offense, to promote more action. So far, the changes seem to be working.

And it’s not just MLB. Last week, the Tri-City Chili Peppers Hosted The first-ever “Cosmic Baseball” game, which is believed to be the first organized sporting event to be played entirely under black lights. The Chili Peppers are a collegiate summer league team in the Coastal Plain League, the league in which Banana Ball was born. And with three more cosmic baseball games scheduled this summer, the Chili Peppers may have heralded the next iteration of baseball entertainment.

So, slowly but surely, Cole and his team are not only building an empire, they are changing baseball as we know it, potentially forever.

For Cole and the Bananas, the records, milestones and overall growth are coming faster than ever. This weekend, however, expect Cole to do something the yellow-suited marketing machine rarely has time to do, which is to stop and enjoy the moment. “From selling only a few tickets in the first few months to selling out one of the most iconic venues in sports now, it has been beyond outstanding,” Cole said. books When he announced the sale of Fenway. “This is just the beginning and we are still in the first half. But June 8 will be a day I will never forget.”




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