Episode 1
Jesse Cole, Disruptor in a Yellow Tuxedo; Owner of the Savannah Bananas, a circus disguised as a baseball team (or maybe the other way around!)
Jesse is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and the owner of the Savannah Bananas baseball team.
He’s the infamous “dude in the yellow tux” and a man who’s truly disrupting the way baseball is played, presented and consumed.
Jesse is to baseball what PT Barnum was to Circuses.
Fans First Entertainment has been on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America & Jesse’s teams have welcomed more than a million fans to their ballparks and have a quarter of a million more Tik Tok followers than any major league team, at a time when baseball is viewed as increasingly tedious and not able to reach younger audiences.
Jesse released his first book “Find your Yellow Tux” and launched it in the most perfect way – with a World Tour… A World Tour that took place entirely within EPCOT.
Jesse owns seven yellow tuxedos and even proposed to his wife Emily while wearing one in front of a sold-out crowd, and they later married in the stadium.
Jesse also hosts the Business Done Differently Podcast.
Strap in for this, Jesse is energy exemplified and a true business innovator. Totally fascinating.
Transcript
So Jessie, welcome to The Narrativ Podcast. I'm
Speaker:really glad that you were able to join me here today.
Speaker:Excited to be with you.
Speaker:I'll tell you a little bit about how I stumbled upon the Savannah
Speaker:Bananas and about your story. But I would love for you to
Speaker:share with my listeners your story, tell me about the Bananas
Speaker:and what you're doing there. And then we'll circle back and go
Speaker:into how I discovered it. And I think we'll kick off a cool
Speaker:conversation from there.
Speaker:Yeah, well, I'm just a former baseball guy now running a
Speaker:circus, in Savannah, Georgia. You know, long story short, I
Speaker:played baseball my whole life. It was everything for me. My
Speaker:father bought a baseball facility when I was younger, so
Speaker:I could workout in the winter up in Massachusetts, fortunate to get
Speaker:a full scholarship to play in Division One baseball down in
Speaker:South Carolina, dream of playing pro ball talking to professional
Speaker:Teams, tore everything in my shoulder, just like that three
Speaker:tears career over. And it was probably the best thing that
Speaker:ever happened to me because it guided me into the front office.
Speaker:And I started seeing the opportunities to create a game
Speaker:that wasn't just fun to play, but was fun to watch, then I had a
Speaker:10 year journey in Gastonia with a team that only had $268 in the
Speaker:bank account my first day and only 200 fans coming to the game
Speaker:to end up buying that team, selling it a few years later and
Speaker:going down to Savannah and, you know, to a city that had
Speaker:professional baseball for 90 years and failed and left the
Speaker:city and we came in and proceeded to fail just like
Speaker:they did, even worse. And we're fortunate to turn it around now
Speaker:and we're touring all over the country, and it's something I
Speaker:never imagined.
Speaker:It's amazing. So, I stumble across and literally I'm gonna
Speaker:use the term stumble across the Savannah Bananas a few months
Speaker:ago, this good friend of mine, who's a big baseball fan, sends
Speaker:me a direct message on Twitter, and the direct message has an
Speaker:attachment. The attachment is a video from the Savannah Bananas,
Speaker:and the video is of your third baseman Bill Leroy miked up for
Speaker:the broadcast, talking with the announcer. And sharing,
Speaker:Prognosticating, exactly what he thinks the next play is going to
Speaker:be. And he gets it exactly right. Let's listen to it.
Speaker:Roll it over. I'm gonna backhand it. And Manny Machado underhand
Speaker:throw the out at first. Oh my god.
Speaker:there's no way. Oh my god. I just had to let that that was
Speaker:Nostradamus. Dude, that was Deja Vu. I don't know. We just call
Speaker:it every second of that.
Speaker:I was like that is totally cool. So, of course I watch it. And I
Speaker:do you know, I said, Well, I�ve got to watch some other stuff. I�ve got
Speaker:to see what else is going on with this team I've never heard
Speaker:Of, because this is kind of cool. And the next video I find is the
Speaker:video of your batter coming to the plate with a caddy and a
Speaker:yardage book. And in the conversation we're going back
Speaker:and forth on Twitter. I actually just revisited it yesterday just
Speaker:to refresh myself. I said �look at the dude in the background in
Speaker:the yellow tuxedo�. And the message he sent wasn't just
Speaker:to me, it was to someone else as well. And she commented back she
Speaker:goes, �I just was reading the thread that's the owner�. So we
Speaker:went back and forth. And I thought well, that's really
Speaker:cool. But and I did a little bit of research and watch some other
Speaker:videos and thought well, that's just kind of cool. And then a
Speaker:couple of months ago I had Stephanie Stuckey from Stuckey�s
Speaker:on the podcast. And, and Stephanie is friends with you.
Speaker:And I saw something come across LinkedIn that she commented on
Speaker:that you had posted. So I said I have to follow. So I followed and
Speaker:since then it's been kind of a cool journey. So I thought it
Speaker:was really interesting because I love baseball. I grew up with
Speaker:baseball. And my earliest memories are, my grandmother was
Speaker:blind. I grew up in Southern California and my grandmother
Speaker:would listen to Dodger�s games on the radio. And I would lay on
Speaker:the floor next to her with a transistor radio listening to
Speaker:Dodger games with Vin Scully doing the games. And that's
Speaker:where my love of baseball came from. It didn't come from my dad, it
Speaker:didn't come from my grandfather,
Speaker:the days of Kirk Gibson were earlier than
Speaker:that earlier that we're talking you know, I'm in my 60s. So it
Speaker:was when you know, it was the you know, it was Wes Parker and
Speaker:Willie Davis and Don Sutton and, you know, it was for so in the
Speaker:funny part is my grandmother who was blind and couldn't pronounce
Speaker:his name. So I joke about that with people all the time. She forever and I
Speaker:tried 100 times to change it called him, Fernando Venezuela,
Speaker:because that's what she heard. So I have this love of baseball,
Speaker:and much like you wanted to play, but I wasn't good enough, I
Speaker:the whole bit. And then, as I've gotten older, the game has gotten
Speaker:boring to me, which I find really bizarre for something so
Speaker:embedded in me from such a young age. The game got boring. And when I
Speaker:saw what you're doing, I'm like, Oh my God, there's a way
Speaker:potentially to get kids and youth and other people excited
Speaker:about it the way I was excited about it when I was a kid
Speaker:100% I mean, again, I mean, I saw it 15 years ago, you know, I
Speaker:was literally. So before I went into I became an intern with a
Speaker:team at 22 years old before I became an intern I coached in
Speaker:the Cape Cod League, okay. And I'm sitting there and now
Speaker:looking at that roster with the Cotuit Cavaliers and Mike
Speaker:Roberts coaching, the father of Brian Roberts, the second
Speaker:baseman for the Orioles, for many years, every single guy in
Speaker:that team was drafted and almost everyone played in the majors,
Speaker:many of them all stars, and I'm sitting there in the dugout,
Speaker:with the best players in the country. And I was bored out of
Speaker:my mind, I was literally, I was next to the guys in the best
Speaker:seat on the field. And I was like this game. You know, you've
Speaker:seen it all to an extent. You've seen the doubles, you've seen
Speaker:the homeruns, you've seen the strikeouts, and the games are
Speaker:getting longer. And I was like, I'm bored. And I'm going over to
Speaker:become an intern and potentially run a team. And I got to
Speaker:convince people to watch this with lesser baseball players.
Speaker:Good luck. Yeah, it was really a big aha moment. For me. It was
Speaker:kind of similar. You know, Walt Disney. I�ve got posters of him in
Speaker:my office here. And he and PT Barnum are huge, huge mentors.
Speaker:And, you know, Walt sat at Griffith Park and with his
Speaker:daughter, Diane, and was watching her go on the merry go
Speaker:round and said, I wish there was a place that was fun for adults
Speaker:and kids. And he had that aha moment. And that's where the
Speaker:inspiration for Disneyland came. And you think about you know, we
Speaker:often have those moments, but we don't do anything about and I
Speaker:was fortunate I had the opportunity to do something
Speaker:about it with our first team in Gastonia.
Speaker:So, so you call it a circus, which I think is really kind of
Speaker:a cool phrase, especially for the owner of a team but two
Speaker:teams now now our professional team is the one that's doing
Speaker:traveling all over the country but yeah, it started with just
Speaker:call it summer team. What about what was levels of baseball
Speaker:there is and then
Speaker:and then you now you have the pro team which is kind of like I
Speaker:when I read about it, and the way you just described it, it's
Speaker:almost like barnstorming baseball that happened back in
Speaker:the day, right? Just going around city to city, get a bunch
Speaker:of people put on a show PT Barnum style,
Speaker:and now there's nobody doing there's literally no there's no
Speaker:one barnstorming baseball team bringing the show anymore
Speaker:Because there's baseball everywhere. Yeah, unless you're
Speaker:doing something dramatically different. What's the point?
Speaker:Yeah, and then we're also doing something completely unscalable
Speaker:we're bringing our pep band we're bringing our male
Speaker:cheerleading team, our breakdancing coaches, our
Speaker:players on stilts, we're bringing both teams we're
Speaker:bringing 92 people which the Globetrotters only bring 30 So
Speaker:we're bringing in three times the amount of people that Globe
Speaker:Trotters bring, but we think there's a need and there's a
Speaker:need for fun and people to get together and see something they�ve
Speaker:never seen before and so we are going all in on it
Speaker:and that and you're not doing it you're not degrading the quality
Speaker:of the game when you're doing it right the game is you're still
Speaker:the players are good players and they're playing at a very high
Speaker:level, like the Globetrotters I guess a great parallel because
Speaker:they have really really, skilled players. And a lot of your
Speaker:players have moved on into professional careers you had
Speaker:first round or second round or third round. Fourth rounders.
Speaker:Russell Wilson played baseball for me when we were at the Gastonia
Speaker:Grizzlies, our pro team this past year during our one city
Speaker:world tour. We had 14 guys sign pro contracts. You know
Speaker:Jake Peavy is going to be pitching for us this spring. I
Speaker:mean, former Cy Young Award winner. We're about to announce
Speaker:a former major league coach with us but yeah, you play
Speaker:better when you're having fun. And I think for us, you know a
Speaker:big difference between the Globetrotters is our games are
Speaker:outrageously competitive. It's not scripted, who's gonna win
Speaker:the bit. We played four games last spring two in Savannah and
Speaker:two and our one city World Tour in the Bananas lost half the
Speaker:games. And because you never know it's a competitive
Speaker:environment within the show in the circus and the fun and, you
Speaker:know, again, we've skipped away ahead, but it's just we've found
Speaker:that major league baseball games are getting longer every single
Speaker:year, attendance is declining dramatically, viewership is
Speaker:declining dramatically. And they're losing young fans every
Speaker:single day when the average baseball fan is now over 60
Speaker:years old. So, we said why don't we create something that we
Speaker:would love? You know, we have all Millennials on our team.
Speaker:Everyone's in their 20s. And we said why don't we create some
Speaker:that we'd all want to see. And what's happened is now we have
Speaker:over 900,000 followers on Tiktok 250,000, more than any major
Speaker:league baseball team. And it's crazy, because just five years
Speaker:ago, we only sold two tickets. And my wife and I were had to
Speaker:empty out our savings account. We had to sell our house and
Speaker:we're sleeping on an air bed. So when you think about that in
Speaker:perspective, it's pretty amazing. I try to pinch myself
Speaker:every day and realize that you know how many people get to do
Speaker:what we're doing? And it's so much fun.
Speaker:So, the root of this is you're passionate about the game and as
Speaker:you described it earlier, just that you know you grew up and
Speaker:wanted to go into management at what point did you pivot and say
Speaker:it was at that moment sitting in the dugout that time or was it
Speaker:and I'm
Speaker:not passionate about the game. Okay, passion about what
Speaker:the game can be. It's a big difference. Okay, I'm passionate
Speaker:about the fun I'm passionate about seeing you know, our
Speaker:players go into the crowd after they score their first run and
Speaker:the whole entire team run ever after. It's for everyone in the
Speaker:crowd and high fiving every single fan I'm passionate about
Speaker:watch our players in the fourth inning deliver roses to little
Speaker:girls in the crowd. I'm passionate about our players going on
Speaker:dates with fans in the middle of the game. I'm passionate about
Speaker:seeing 4000 fans dancing to hey baby in the middle the game. We
Speaker:just happen to have a platform that we play baseball, but I'm
Speaker:really passionate about all the other moments that people have
Speaker:never seen before. You mentioned those two walkups I mean, Bill
Speaker:Leroy he became most famous when he walked up the plane and
Speaker:introduced himself Yeah, now batting third for the Bananas from
Speaker:UNCG, myself, and then he throws the mic. I mean, it went
Speaker:people went nuts. It was just fun. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I
Speaker:think that was the moment and then it was a ton of failure.
Speaker:You know, when I started as a GM of a team of 23 years old, and
Speaker:$268 in the bank account, and only 200 fans coming to the
Speaker:game. People didn't notice. I couldn't pay myself for the
Speaker:first three months. Luckily, I saved a little bit in college
Speaker:because I had a full scholarship that I was able to live off that
Speaker:and it was tough. But what I learned was the power of
Speaker:experimentation, and just trying things over and over again, I
Speaker:was so fortunate to have an owner who would become so close
Speaker:he actually married my wife and I at our stadium. That's a whole
Speaker:other thing and I proposed we delayed the game for two hours
Speaker:and it was pretty ridiculous that's a whole other story. You
Speaker:know, I try things: flatulence fun night, salute to
Speaker:underwear night. I mean, Midnight Madness with games
Speaker:playing at midnight on a Friday night, great Community Give Back
Speaker:Game, dig to China night. I mean, given away porta-Johns, colon
Speaker:Cleansing, donut burgers, Donut dogs, taco dogs. I mean, we
Speaker:tried it all. And I got 10 years of experience and not experience
Speaker:where reading and learning and and you know, textbooks like
Speaker:going to school for 10 years, I got real hands-on experience.
Speaker:When we put flatulence fun night only 200 people showed up. That
Speaker:was a failure. I learned don't do that again. You know, so what
Speaker:it was about. So that's why I was lucky.
Speaker:So one of the things I've seen since you know, I mentioned I've
Speaker:been following on LinkedIn for a while. And one of the things
Speaker:I've noticed is and I think this is a really cool thing is it as
Speaker:a marketer, and you just touched on, you know, failure, more
Speaker:things fail than are successful for most people, certainly when
Speaker:you're in a marketing or promotional business. And I see
Speaker:that you actually publicize and kind of embrace the failure. I
Speaker:saw a couple weeks ago, you posted something about one of
Speaker:the first keynotes you, you did post pandemic and you showed up
Speaker:and you're willing, you know, you showed up in the yellow tux
Speaker:and you got in a room and there was seven or eight people there.
Speaker:Yeah, it was an auditorium of 927 showed a big difference
Speaker:right there. All right, not 727. But you know, I'm messing
Speaker:around. But yeah, and it wasn't my fault. I've given probably
Speaker:100 Live keynotes, I've been fortunate, you know, paid to
Speaker:speak all over the country for many years. But you know,
Speaker:recently where, you know, I think the one before it was 1500
Speaker:people. And then I go and there's 27 people there. And I
Speaker:think I posted today on LinkedIn, it's you know, how you
Speaker:view things is how you do things. And I've been fortunate
Speaker:to take that mindset of look at everything as a lesson. And I
Speaker:hate the word failure. I get asked that question, every
Speaker:single interview, tell me about your biggest failures. I don't
Speaker:look at them as failures, I look at them as at-bats. Pete Rose got
Speaker:out 10,000 times in his career, he had 4000 hits, more hits than
Speaker:anyone that ever played the game. He also had 2000 more at-bats
Speaker:than anyone that ever played the game. So I look at what are
Speaker:the lessons the learning and discovery. So that's why every
Speaker:night at our ballpark, we do four brand new promotions we've
Speaker:never done in front of a live crowd ever. So we have 30 games
Speaker:in a season you're doing 120 brand new things you've ever
Speaker:done before, probably 100 of them won't work that well. But
Speaker:20 could be hits. And so we're getting quicker and faster and
Speaker:better hits and huge successes than anyone else just because
Speaker:we're testing more quantity leads to quality. And so that's
Speaker:what we look at every day. It's like what are we testing new?
Speaker:What are we trying new? It's a reason why we have almost a
Speaker:million followers on Tiktok because we've been testing
Speaker:things every day for a year and a half.
Speaker:So I've got to imagine that that process of ideating with those
Speaker:promotions has just got to be as fun as it could possibly
Speaker:be just a bunch of hooey whether it's just you or however can
Speaker:describe that process of how do you come up with that's a lot to
Speaker:come up with you know that many promotions over the course of a
Speaker:year and that many to execute on the any given day is a lot
Speaker:only a percentage of what we come up with only a percentage
Speaker:and it's because most teams most companies spend most of their
Speaker:time talking about revenue, sales profits, they have sales
Speaker:meetings, you know, they have marketing meetings, we have
Speaker:ideas sessions every single day. There's a difference and it's
Speaker:does your company does your culture value ideas. And so you
Speaker:know we started to have an �Idea Palooza� many years ago with
Speaker:our whole team now we do a more individualized with our
Speaker:departments. So we got our groups are creative and go from
Speaker:there. But yeah, every morning I mean I wrote down today I had a
Speaker:new ideas for the Banana pep band, so I 10 ideas on the Banana pep
Speaker:band. Yeah. 10 ideas for the Banana Stand 10 ideas for walk up
Speaker:promotions, 10 ideas for scoring celebrations. And then I get
Speaker:together with our director, entertainment marketing people,
Speaker:we say what are we going to try? And that's the key for us. It's
Speaker:so much fun, because when you have no red tape, you know, we
Speaker:have no corporate it's myself and my wife. You know, I'm in a
Speaker:yellow tuxedo. I give ourselves permission to have fun. And I
Speaker:think that's kind of the magic of what we get to do in a given
Speaker:year. It's a lot of things people we do that just don't
Speaker:fit. They don't work. Well. We had a town, you know, the town
Speaker:crier, like do I hear you hear you. We had him do an intro to a
Speaker:hitter and he walked up. He had this big scroll and he read out
Speaker:no button and he was holding. The crowd was like what is going
Speaker:on? And we posted it on tick tock and no one liked it. I
Speaker:mean, it was terrible.
Speaker:Yeah, the Tik Tok audience has no idea what a town crier is
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Yeah, it was very confused. I thought it was kind of funny. We
Speaker:thought it was kind of funny. thing is, you never insult your
Speaker:fans. And so most sports teams, they don't realize it. But every
Speaker:single day, they're insulting their fans. And I'm not saying
Speaker:this in a negative way, what I'm saying this is because they're
Speaker:taking the dollars from sponsors to put a promotion on the field
Speaker:that's geared just towards that sponsor, this car sponsorship
Speaker:deal or promo to buy so and so so and so. And your fans
Speaker:immediately go to their phones, because they're bored. Don't do
Speaker:anything that you don't want to see, or that you don't want to
Speaker:be a part of. And we have zero corporate sponsors. We don't
Speaker:have any of that, because we're all about the fans. And
Speaker:fortunately, after sleeping on an air bed and having $0 and
Speaker:struggling, it's starting to pay off pretty
Speaker:well. Yeah, I was reading that you don't settle on that
Speaker:sponsorship front, you don't even sell in-stadium advertising
Speaker:or anything, right? You're just, this is completely self-
Speaker:Sustained. Self-supporting?
Speaker:Yeah, it's a terrible business model that we did right before
Speaker:the pandemic. Alright, guys, right before the pandemic shuts
Speaker:us down a little bit, how can we give away, throw away, hundreds of
Speaker:thousands of dollars, that's literally what we did. But we're
Speaker:playing the long game, we believe in long term fans over
Speaker:short term profits. And what we actually did is, you know, the
Speaker:outfield wall, which is very valuable real estate, and every
Speaker:sports team, hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars
Speaker:for the higher-level teams, we gave it to the fans, we actually
Speaker:had the biggest fan wall, and we let the fans sign the wall. So
Speaker:the fans are now part of the wall, as opposed to corporate
Speaker:sponsors. And, you know, luckily, what's happened, we're
Speaker:very fortunate that merchandise is now triple, triple what we
Speaker:did in sponsorship. And there's probably not a team in the
Speaker:country. Actually, I know for a fact there's not a team in the
Speaker:country, the world that can say that even double. And so I see
Speaker:it as every day fans are buying our gear and wearing that
Speaker:they're advertising us Yeah, post us advertising, the car
Speaker:dealership, the orthodontics the insurance company, etc. So in
Speaker:the long term, I think this is a big way and already it's
Speaker:starting to
Speaker:pay off. And they're doing that, I think because they have
Speaker:they've developed an emotional attachment, emotional connection
Speaker:to what you're doing. And so they're, they're proud to do
Speaker:that. It's not just you know, it's, it's not as though they're
Speaker:supporting their lifelong baseball team. They're
Speaker:supporting a new thing. But they've gotten enthralled by
Speaker:it. They think it's cool, they've, they've developed an
Speaker:affinity for something quickly and feel part of it, I'm sure.
Speaker:And that's what makes them proud to wear those shirts and walk
Speaker:around and a hat and do whatever they're doing.
Speaker:Well, we I mean, we made so many mistakes in the beginning and
Speaker:like, you know, our first shipment of T-shirts came in and
Speaker:there are too many N�s in Bananas. Like we literally
Speaker:misspelled our T-shirts. But the one thing that we've done well
Speaker:from the beginning is involve our fans in everything. Our
Speaker:fans were involved in the name the team contest, our fans were
Speaker:involved in name the mascot contests, our fans design our
Speaker:jerseys, we even let our fans decide who was going to pitch
Speaker:during games. And like vote which the first time they made
Speaker:that decision, our closer gave up six runs and we lost the
Speaker:game. Our coach didn't love that one. But we've let our fans
Speaker:decide what cities we go to we let our fans vote where what's
Speaker:what cities we're playing, and we're bringing our Banana Ball
Speaker:Tour to so we let our fans you know, in regards to new rules
Speaker:that we're adding to the game, new promotions, new walk up
Speaker:songs, we let our fans do all that what we should do during
Speaker:the game. And so, when you bring them on part of the journey, you
Speaker:know, they feel not only a part of it, but they feel this
Speaker:unbelievable ownership and you mentioned emotional connection.
Speaker:And I think that's something that we will never stop doing.
Speaker:And here's why. It's not just a campaign or two, it's literally
Speaker:who we are. It's the name of our company Fans First
Speaker:Entertainment. Our mission is fans first entertainment always. Every
Speaker:decision we ask is it fans first. We cannot not do that. It's
Speaker:literally in our DNA. When we have meetings, we have an empty
Speaker:chair that represents a fan, would a fan want this? And that's why
Speaker:we have no ticket fees, no convenience fees, which are the
Speaker:most inconvenient fee in the world. That's why every game in
Speaker:Savannah includes all your burgers, hotdogs, chicken
Speaker:sandwiches, soda, water, popcorn, dessert, everything.
Speaker:That's why there's free parking. That's why there's free
Speaker:programs. That's why when you buy merchandise on our website,
Speaker:there's free shipping always. And you get a free koozie, a free
Speaker:Decal, a custom yellow box delivered fresh stamp. It costs
Speaker:us $11. Before we even count the product, before they
Speaker:even buy anything, like not a smart business. But overall, it
Speaker:ends up working out and we go for the thin margins because we
Speaker:want our fans to feel proud of who they are and what they're
Speaker:doing.
Speaker:So when I was watching the videos, the first videos that I
Speaker:saw, my first thought was and this is me being old guy who's
Speaker:been around or watched you know, baseball my whole life and I
Speaker:thought, Man, the opposing team with all the stupid unwritten
Speaker:rules in baseball. What does the opposing team think about all
Speaker:this? My question is like, what does the opposing team think?
Speaker:And then more importantly, what do the other people running
Speaker:teams think about what you're doing? Because what you're doing
Speaker:is pretty damn disruptive on both.
Speaker:I mean, even our players were like, started our first year like
Speaker:what are they doing? Like our players were against? I remember
Speaker:guys saying, Well, I'm not gonna I mean, our players do a
Speaker:choreographed dance every single night. It's a different dance.
Speaker:Yeah, literally. When we do tours before the game. People
Speaker:like they're not taking batting practice, but they're learning
Speaker:how to dance. Yeah, that's very important tonight,
Speaker:and they watch rehearsals. They don't watch batting practice.
Speaker:They watch rehearsals. So yeah, even our guys were against it.
Speaker:And then the other players Yeah, I mean, we have a doughnut
Speaker:hitter every game. And just like toga and Animal House toga the
Speaker:entire stadium. 4000 people are chanting doughnut, doughnut,
Speaker:every single pitch and if you strike out the whole stadium
Speaker:gets free donuts. It's crazy. Alright. But what happens is,
Speaker:and I'll never forget we're playing in the playoffs last
Speaker:year. And fortunately, the teams won more games than any team in
Speaker:the league. So I think they're having more fun. And we won the
Speaker:championship again last year. And in the championship round,
Speaker:the game finishes, and we're feeding that the guys, we feed
Speaker:both teams, we do a full catered meal, we do it right, because
Speaker:that's fans first. And you know, we realize that we're
Speaker:trying to create fans of anybody we touch. So I'm walking out of
Speaker:the stadium and I'm getting ready to close up shop and the
Speaker:other team is still there. And I watch three guys from the
Speaker:visiting team walk into our merchandise store and are buying
Speaker:in the championship. I'm like, Oh, my god, wow. Like, this is a
Speaker:this says it all. And I just only I wish I wish I had a
Speaker:photograph of them buying it because like this would prove a
Speaker:point. And I think we literally now worked. Fortunately, we've
Speaker:been able to create fans of the other team. include other
Speaker:owners. That's another
Speaker:I was gonna say,
Speaker:the other owners. Yeah, I mean, being very upfront, we
Speaker:hosted the all-star game a couple years ago, and only half
Speaker:the owners showed up. Every other season, every owner shows up,
Speaker:it's mandatory, but half won't even come and see what we do.
Speaker:Yeah, I would imagine I can just say, you know, people who are
Speaker:embedded in the way they do things and think that you're
Speaker:changing a model and giving away money, that they don't want
Speaker:to give away all those kinds of things with, you know, that's
Speaker:great dancing
Speaker:first base coaches in the middle of the game, the pregame way
Speaker:ends before the two teams that don't, you know, our fans line
Speaker:up about three to four hours before the game every night,
Speaker:hundreds lining up to get in the ballpark. And you know, we do a
Speaker:full March and have princesses and our players are
Speaker:dancing. Yeah, it's it's. But I think the big key is you're
Speaker:supposed to know and most people say, well, who's your target
Speaker:audience who's your target demographic, we focus on who
Speaker:we're not for? We're not for those owners. We're not for
Speaker:baseball traditionalist, we're not for the grandpa's that want
Speaker:the game to always stay the same. Yeah. And when you're very
Speaker:clear who you're not for, you can be very strategic and make
Speaker:every decision on who you are for. And so we start the
Speaker:opposite there. And that's, I don't spend a lot of bandwidth
Speaker:and time focusing on the people who don't like what we're doing.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, even in my business, I would you know,
Speaker:forever would create content, or you know, whether it be
Speaker:advertising or something else about technology. And I always
Speaker:like to push the boundaries of things, and I would take it and
Speaker:you know, show it to my bosses and everybody be like, Oh, my
Speaker:God, don't go show it to them. And I show it to them. And they,
Speaker:I had enough of a relationship with them, they would look at it
Speaker:and say, I don't get it. I don't understand it. But I'm not the
Speaker:target audience either. Like you're not trying to sell to
Speaker:we're not trying to sell to the CEO of a technology company
Speaker:we're trying to sell to a bank or an insurance company or a
Speaker:retailer. And that's a different world and I don't live in their
Speaker:world. So I don't think like they do. I think
Speaker:Jeff Bezos said it best. You need to be willing to be
Speaker:misunderstood at first. Every single thing that has been
Speaker:disruptive is outrageously misunderstood. I mean, think
Speaker:about right now how many people you know, 5-10 years ago, say I
Speaker:want to have something in my kitchen that's shaped like an
Speaker:old Pringles can. But it's a speaker and it listens to
Speaker:everything you say, and you can talk to it constantly. No one
Speaker:would say that same thing with every Apple product. I mean,
Speaker:right? Four years ago, you say, alright, this thing, Tik Tok
Speaker:is going to be really big. Alright. It's little tiny clips,
Speaker:mostly of just people doing dances. Like all the big like,
Speaker:no, but I think you know, NFT's you can keep going. As soon as
Speaker:something becomes a little polarizing. That's when I'm very
Speaker:interested. I said, if you're not getting criticized, you're
Speaker:playing it too safe. If we go like six months, and no one's
Speaker:criticizing us, I'm like, Guys, we got to start doing something.
Speaker:We're not doing anything that pushing the envelope anymore
Speaker:here. Yeah. And I think
Speaker:like, that's a very delicate thing to do. But you know, you
Speaker:need to be willing to be misunderstood, just like Jeff
Speaker:Bezos said, and we're misunderstood everyday. What do
Speaker:you mean you have your Banana Ball games? What do you mean
Speaker:fans can catch a foul ball for an out? What are you talking
Speaker:about? There's no bunting? Bunting�s a part of the game you
Speaker:know, part of those rules I mean, fan catching a foul ball
Speaker:for now just because of fans first, that's what we believe.
Speaker:But no bunting is really as much for the criticism and to go
Speaker:against baseball traditions, anything Yeah, like and because
Speaker:my dad as a kid said Jesse swing hard and, and I've always had
Speaker:this mindset of swinging hard. And but anyways, but that's
Speaker:that's part of it. it's part of the strategy. You know, we're
Speaker:trying to do things a little different and to create
Speaker:conversation, which I think conversation is how you move the
Speaker:ball forward.
Speaker:Yeah. So tell me about the yellow tux and how that all
Speaker:started, then I know you've you've actually written your
Speaker:book. Find Your Yellow Tux. Tell me about that.
Speaker:Yeah, so yellow tux. Long story short, I was putting on a show
Speaker:with our first team in Gastonia, and I was dressed like everyone
Speaker:else, you know, polo pants, you know, trying to look the part of
Speaker:the GM of the team. And someone who's read every book about PT
Speaker:Barnum was like, you know, I'm paying fans in the stands. You
Speaker:know, we are dancing. We are, it's a circus. Why am I dressed
Speaker:like everyone else? And so I realized I was putting on a
Speaker:show. I need to be a showman. So I channeled my inner PT Barnum and
Speaker:called my buddy who owns a bridal and formal shop and I said, I
Speaker:need your best PT Barnum look, He says alright, I got something
Speaker:so he gets me a black tuxedo with big tails and a black top
Speaker:hat and the first game, it was 101 degrees and I almost melted.
Speaker:And so that night, I was like, this ain't gonna work. So I went
Speaker:and said, What about yellow and you know, our former team the
Speaker:Grizzlies had yellow and ironically the Bananas it worked
Speaker:for. So I searched I found bright-colored-tuxedos.com, I
Speaker:overnighted a tuxedo for $50 bucks, I got it the next day
Speaker:wore it. And everyone wanted pictures like that. That is you,
Speaker:my man. And I realize it was just my uniform. And you know,
Speaker:I've been practicing for all those years when I put this on,
Speaker:this is my uniform. And just like in baseball, when you put
Speaker:on your uniform, you know, it's game time when I put this on, it
Speaker:was showtime. And so I started realized, like I was channeling
Speaker:a whole other part of me, I was amplifying who I am, I was going
Speaker:all out. And you could see I mean, you know, you can have
Speaker:this interview at 4am. And I would still bring the same
Speaker:energy. It�s in my talks. And that's who I am. And I love it.
Speaker:So as I started to share what we were doing, and the differences
Speaker:in how we were standing out, I got fortunate to give a good big
Speaker:keynote, maybe five years ago, at ProfitCon, an event with
Speaker:about 400 financial advisors and accountants not the audience of
Speaker:baseball team owners should speak to. And they asked me what
Speaker:the topic of the speech should be, they want to talk about, you
Speaker:know, finding what makes you different, what stands out and,
Speaker:and I said, Find Your Yellow Tux now Oh, good title, fun, go do
Speaker:it. And I did it. And I'll never forget my first big keynote. And
Speaker:it was almost a two minute standing ovation. And I walked
Speaker:off the stage. And they said, you need to write that in a
Speaker:book. And so I immediately took action and put into a book and
Speaker:shared, you know how personally I've been able to stand out how
Speaker:anyone can stand and how you can do it yourself, your life, your
Speaker:business, and then also your legacy. And so I wrote that four
Speaker:or five years ago, and now I'm ready for the follow up the
Speaker:second book coming out in about four months. And it's been a
Speaker:real fun journey. And I'm just I think the big key with anything
Speaker:is just start, you know, often we're taught, we're thinking,
Speaker:thinking, thinking, you know, stop thinking start doing and I
Speaker:say, Stop standing, stop standing still start standing
Speaker:out. And that's kind of the main messages of the book.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, it seems to me that, you know, one of the
Speaker:things that most marketers in my career path are the people you
Speaker:know, the industries that I've been in, tend to get an
Speaker:paralysis by analysis, we just we overanalyze the results on
Speaker:everything, we look at everything you have, to find
Speaker:some crap. And we're not the ones who are willing to say, you
Speaker:know, just go try it. What's the worst thing that happens if we
Speaker:try it, and to your point, you can call it failure. But the
Speaker:more reality is, it's not failure. It's just another step
Speaker:of learning. You take insight from everything
Speaker:that you do. And, you know, I think that that's a the
Speaker:willingness to experiment is great. And I think the
Speaker:willingness to experiment, I'm sure, you know, when you were
Speaker:starting to do experiment, you were on a lifeline, you didn't
Speaker:have a lot of a lot of wiggle room, in the whole business,
Speaker:which I tried nothing to lose. Now, we've never had money. So
Speaker:we always had to out think not outspend. But yeah, I mean, we
Speaker:had nothing to lose. We were a tiny team in Gastonia that the
Speaker:media didn't even know who we were, we were just these little
Speaker:guys that a team that failed for seven years. So I think one of
Speaker:the biggest challenges successful companies have to
Speaker:experimentation is their past successes. You know, what got
Speaker:you here won't get you there. And often that will hold you
Speaker:back. Because you've been so successful. I get scared that
Speaker:more success we have that that will limit us and not trying
Speaker:something because we're afraid of taking away from that
Speaker:success.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, do you get Do you worry at all about getting
Speaker:stuck? You know, Globetrotters are a great example. And I don't
Speaker:know that I would call them stuck. They've been around since
Speaker:the 30s. But they have to do the same thing all the time. You
Speaker:know, they have to do the bucket of confetti. They've got to do
Speaker:the path. They choose, but they choose to but
Speaker:but I do I feel like we're gonna get I'm not trying to cut you
Speaker:off. No, no, it's your show. And I'm, and I'm close with some of
Speaker:their top executives have been a part of that journey a little
Speaker:bit, I think for us, because we built a culture of ideas. And my
Speaker:biggest fear in life is settling. That as long as I'm a
Speaker:part of this, which I hope for many, many years, and then my
Speaker:kids and grandkids, we will never stop. Because I have a
Speaker:fear of not only setting but being irrelevant and not making
Speaker:a difference and making an impact. So you know, again, you
Speaker:have to, you have to push that because a lot of people will say
Speaker:it's very easy to say this is what we did last year, let's
Speaker:read but to do that, it's very hard to say this is what we did
Speaker:last year that was successful, let's do something different.
Speaker:Yeah. That's extremely hard. And so you have to build that into
Speaker:the DNA. And you have to continue to talk about it over
Speaker:and over and over again. And I think part of our vision, you
Speaker:know, we did a five year vision a year ago and said, We're going
Speaker:to play 24/7 365, which again, look at whatever is normal, and
Speaker:I haven't shared this our mindset, whatever is normal, do
Speaker:the exact opposite. Those teams playing a league they played
Speaker:during the summer. We said, well, what if we're not only?
Speaker:What if we played year round? What could that look like? And
Speaker:all of a sudden our minds just expanded, we started thinking
Speaker:differently. What if our ballpark wasn't just a ballpark?
Speaker:What if it was Banana Land? What if we had Treehouse AirBnB�s and
Speaker:zip lines across the field and speakeasies and trains and you
Speaker:name it? And so we started thinking the ballpark as if it�s
Speaker:Disneyworld. And so when you start expanding your mind and
Speaker:not thinking the way you've always done, then all of a
Speaker:sudden you find inspiration in everything. I mean, literally,
Speaker:we have a house on Tybee and now it's just funny because we had
Speaker:to sell our house and we were living in at an air bed. We
Speaker:bought a larger house for our expanding family and right next
Speaker:to the lighthouse and I'm sitting outside and I'm watching
Speaker:on a Saturday afternoon. A lot I go to the lighthouse and climb
Speaker:up and climb down. And I'm watching the slide. And I'm
Speaker:like, this is way too many people, this is outrageous. They
Speaker:climb up, and they climb down. So I walk over there. And this
Speaker:this young man's working the ticket booth. And he said, Would
Speaker:you like one ticket? Oh, no, no, I don't, I don't want to climb
Speaker:up and climb down. But I go, how many people are climbing up this
Speaker:today? And he goes, Ah, it'll be lighter. It'll be okay. We'll
Speaker:probably have about eight to 900. And I go, Are they all
Speaker:paying $10? And he goes, Yeah. And what's a bad day for you?
Speaker:And he goes, Well, yesterday, we had thunderstorms all day, we
Speaker:had to shut it down for half a day. So we had about 250. And I
Speaker:couldn't you still have 250 people pay $10 to climb? Oh,
Speaker:yeah. It's the many days over 1,000. So I'm sitting there and
Speaker:watching this. And I'm like, Why doesn't our stadium have the
Speaker:world's largest banana lighthouse, and an actual like a
Speaker:banana. And it's in center field, people climb out to the
Speaker:top and have a huge balcony that's overlooking 360 view of
Speaker:Savannah. So I call our architect the next day. I said,
Speaker:Can you build this? He starts laughing. He goes, why not? And
Speaker:he started building it. And again, if I was comfortable with
Speaker:the way we've done things, I wouldn't, you know, build that
Speaker:or try to have them build that? And yes, sharing that to the
Speaker:city of Savannah in the city manager like what the heck is
Speaker:right? And they were definitely like, we can't do that. And I
Speaker:want to say, Well, why not? And that's when you can ask that.
Speaker:Why not? And what if you ask those questions over and over
Speaker:again, just like a kid who keeps asking, why not? Come on, daddy,
Speaker:I want this. Come on, daddy, please, please, please, Daddy, I
Speaker:want this more a lot of time they get what they want. I'm
Speaker:never going to stop asking why not? And what if, and when you
Speaker:do that, that's how you can really innovate.