- By Charles Miller
What does a minor league baseball team in Savannah, Georgia, have in common with the mighty All Blacks? A dancing coach!
The Savannah Bananas are an independent baseball team world famous in Savannah for their wild antics and a breakdancing coach, Tyler Gillum.
This team has turned the professional sports model on its head. They don’t care about winning or losing, instead they focus on one thing, and one thing only, making sure every fan has a ‘fan’tastic fun afternoon or evening out! Party time!
When Jesse Cole and his wife, Emily, took over the Savannah franchise in 2016, they recognised that to get cut through and make an impact, they’d have to do things differently. Savannah’s traditional minor league model wasn’t going to do.
They decided to ditch the familiar script. The result? An entirely new approach to baseball, where fans, not scores, are at the heart of everything they do. And the Savannah Bananas became a sensation.
Their game-day experience goes beyond baseball, transforming the ballpark into a theatre of surprises.
The coach dances, the players perform choreographed routines, and, yes, there are even “kilts nights” and games played in outlandish costumes.
They invented “Banana Ball” – a faster, more fan-friendly version of baseball that strips out waiting time, imposes a two-hour time limit, and a rule allowing fans to catch foul balls for outs.
Every innings is a blast, every break an opportunity for entertainment. In a sport where tradition often reigns supreme, they innovate and focus on creating memories.
The Bananas have shifted the concept from perception to perspective. Perception might say that baseball is about runs, outs, and innings, but the Bananas’ perspective says it’s about laughter, excitement, and the joy of gathering.
This is a team that’s used perception – the limited view of how things are “supposed to be” – as a springboard to redefine the business model.
In business terms, they’ve turned a mature industry upside down, proving a new perspective can generate new and unique opportunities.
What lessons can we draw from the Bananas? Mature industries often have well-defined norms and practices, but sometimes those norms are simply habits waiting to be challenged.
By reshaping traditional baseball, the Bananas have carved out a niche with little competition.
They’re the only team like this in the sport, and their audience loves them for it. This shift from a competitive to an uncontested space is key to their success.
So, dream big, turn your world upside down, and create strategies that focus on what truly matters.
Experiment and change the way you look at the world and take that first step toward a new perspective.
And if you’re intrigued by the Bananas, you should know that their latest venture is a new team, called the “Party Animals.”
Now, who wouldn’t want to go to one of their games?
