Join us in this episode of Standing Out, touching on the Savannah Bananas' extraordinary evolution in sports entertainment. Prepare to be dazzled by the thrilling world of 'Banana Ball,' a groundbreaking twist on baseball that has reignited a city's passion for the game by swapping out yawns for cheers. We'll dissect the ingenious all-inclusive ticket model and share how Jared's team turned baseball games into a non-stop carnival, putting the spotlight firmly on fan enjoyment and rewriting the playbook on how sports can captivate an audience.
A word about our sponsors:
Sponsored by SPI Logistics. If you're looking for back-office support such as admin, finance, IT, and sales as a freight broker - reach out to SPI Logistics today! Learn more about becoming an agent here: https://success.spi3pl.com/
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
Join us in this episode of Standing Out, touching on the Savannah Bananas' extraordinary evolution in sports entertainment. Prepare to be dazzled by the thrilling world of 'Banana Ball,' a groundbreaking twist on baseball that has reignited a city's passion for the game by swapping out yawns for cheers. We'll dissect the ingenious all-inclusive ticket model and share how Jared's team turned baseball games into a non-stop carnival, putting the spotlight firmly on fan enjoyment and rewriting the playbook on how sports can captivate an audience.
A word about our sponsors:
Sponsored by SPI Logistics. If you're looking for back-office support such as admin, finance, IT, and sales as a freight broker - reach out to SPI Logistics today! Learn more about becoming an agent here: https://success.spi3pl.com/
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of Standing Out, a podcast about sales, marketing and leadership. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, so excited that you are with us today. We got a big show today. I cannot wait to bring on our guest in just a minute. But before we do that, we got to say thank you to our sponsor, spi Logistics.
Speaker 1:Listen, if you're a freight broker out there and just looking to get rid of all the stuff you don't want to deal with the back office things that you don't want, the hassles, and stay in your sweet spot, make sure you check out SPI Logistics at successspi3plcom. They've got the back office, the technology, the systems, everything that you need to be successful as a freight broker. If you're an agent and you're not satisfied with where you're at, check them out over at SPI Logistics. Proud sponsor of Standing Out Again, check them out at successspi3plcom. All right, we've got an incredible guest today. Let's just rock and roll. Let's get the show going, starting at President and today's guest on Standing Out from Belmont Abbey College keynote speaker and fans first enthusiast, jared Horton.
Speaker 1:It's time, jared Horton. What's up, my friend? How are you doing so good to?
Speaker 2:see you, man, I am fantastic. Was that your voice on the intro, or is that Vince McMahon himself?
Speaker 1:I can't give away the secrets of what we do over here. You know, I mean that's, that's proprietary information. My friend, awesome, good to see you. Good to see you as well. Man, I'm so excited to have you on the show today and I have to just say that this jersey definitely inspired by Savannah Bananas. Can I just share our first interaction? Can I just share the experience I had with Savannah? This is so cool.
Speaker 1:So, jared, you were the keynote speaker at the Elevate Conference for TMSA last year, 2023, in Savannah, georgia, and Jennifer Carpenter Romaine set it up for us to come to a game and I mean, the whole experience was tremendous. As the emcee of that event, I had the chance to talk to you. You were one of our first keynote speakers, and so we started prepping and before that conversation, I was like man, I would love to have a Savannah Benes jersey with my name on it. That'd be so cool. And Jennifer's like man, you just got to take your shot. Just ask them. I mean, what's the worst?
Speaker 1:And so we're on the call and I was a little nervous, but I was like, hey, man, is there any chance that I could get an official jersey with my name on the back and you don't even think about it. Man. It was like, absolutely, we'll do that. Tell me just send me your size, send me your number and your name how you want to spell all that and we'll get it done for you. And, man, I got to tell you like this jersey now that we have for beta, totally inspired by that, and so of course I have. I had to rock the savannah bananas jersey underneath. I got to show this thing off, man, so I really appreciate that you.
Speaker 1:You know, I really appreciate the. You know what you did. That was so cool.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's just get this show rocking.
Speaker 1:We'll get it right here and we changed the background. Look at this. We got a special Savannah banana background. It's awesome, all right, well, tell everybody just a little bit about yourself and then we'll jump in and have a quick conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't even know where to begin really, except for we've been on this ride for nine years or so now with the Savannah Bananas. We came to Savannah, georgia in 2015, basically when baseball was declared dead in Savannah Georgia. Baseball had been here for really professional baseball had been here almost 100 years, since 1926. And we came to a stadium that was built in 1941, which is way older than most of the formidable stadiums that exist in the world today and we came into a city and a stadium and a place where, basically, people just wanted nothing to do with baseball. And so, you know, we had this bright idea like let's start a baseball team in a place where no one wants it. And, you know, super tough sledding early on. You know, people just thought we were a joke. People thought, you know, these guys are just less than you know we were. We were not even professional.
Speaker 2:You know, at that time we were a college summer league and you know we told people there was going to be dancing players and we were going to have all you can eat food and it was going to be 15 bucks, and you know we were just pitching all these grandiose ideas about entertainment and fun and showmanship and all these things, and really people are like we don't care. We literally don't care, you know, because we were just doing the same old, same old kind of thing where you come into a market and you know you say we're the new guys, we're the new thing, we're the new ownership group. You know, blah, blah, blah. And people were like, yeah, we've heard that every five years for the past 100 years, like you're not doing anything different. And it made us realize that you know, you can. You can say a bunch of things. You can have a marketing plan, you can have a, you know, communications plan, a PR, you can have all these things. But it's really about what you do for people when they show up.
Speaker 2:You know your true fans, customers, fans. We call them fans because we're a sports team, but I do believe that everyone should think of their customers as fans. And so we realized that all we have is the experience that we truly create for fans. And can we create an experience where they, you know, ideating around this idea of banana ball and changing the rules and doing all these fun things. And that's kind of the journey that's got us to 2024. And so I've been at it since day one and had a lot of fun doing it. People always ask did you ever think it would be like this? Of course not. We were just trying to sell a few tickets to start off with. But here we are in 2024 doing Banana Ball tour in the country, all that fun stuff, and have had the privilege of leading it since day one. So I have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to talk about that in a little bit more, in just a minute. But before we go any further, I have to ask you first of all. Thank you for being on the show. We're going to send you a little gift. Do you want a standing out water bottle, or do you want a standing out coffee mug? Which one? Are you a coffee drinker? Water bottle what do you?
Speaker 2:like Well, I should drink water a lot more. Coffee definitely decaf actually, which I love, and so my wife would be upset if I brought home a water bottle. But coffee m months are awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, how about? Why don't we just send you both, one for you and one for your wife? We'll get the coffee, that's right. We'll get both on your way. We appreciate you being on the show. You know you talk about fans and how every company should want to have fans, and I'll never forget what you said in the keynote at TMSA. You said what do fans do? They pay full price. They keep coming back and they tell everybody about their experience. And what company doesn't want that type of customer? And I thought that was really key, and so I love the fact that you guys are doing that. I appreciated the keynote that you shared last week. It still sticks with me. We're trying to implement that as much as we can, so much so that we have a fans first focus every week that we talk about in our company. So appreciate what you guys are doing.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the wall tour like this started with one uh one city, the one city, world uh tour that you did. That was successful. Then it went, I think, to eight, something like that. Yep, now you're up just like seven or eight. You're up to 34. Now I believe you got houston. You were at minimade park. You're gonna play the durham bulls stadium, durham, north carolina. I'm excited. That's cool because that movie man was like my childhood. Remember that? You Remember that we were playing at Fenway Park in Boston that's unbelievable. Nationals Park in Washington DC, citizens Bank Park in Philly, progressive field You're not playing minor league stadiums or college teams, some but you're playing major league stadiums. Now that has to be a pretty wild ride for the team.
Speaker 2:It is a wild ride, people, you know people have to know a little bit where that came from. And you know we were doing traditional league baseball for, you know, really six years and it was awesome. You know we were selling out games and people were having fun and we were winning. And you know we were doing the entertainment stuff, like we've been doing this brand of sports and entertainment really since we've started. Now, of course, you see it at a scale that is a lot larger than certainly what it started with. But this idea of Banana Ball and the touring kind of came out of again, looking back to what do our future fans potentially want or need or desire? And sometimes they don't know. It's like what Henry Ford would say. You know, if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. And so people don't exactly know what they want. But we watch their behaviors and we begin to think about an idea around what could they potentially want? Or what are they saying with their feet, what are they saying with their habits? And we just saw this plague, this, you know, epidemic of fans leaving the games early, you know, and we thought we put on a fantastic show. You know that the team was winning. We won like three championships. You know, we were putting all these characters out there, all this fun, like we thought we were doing a fantastic job. And I would argue that we were doing a fantastic job. But we saw, at nine o'clock, almost every single night, people would begin to leave because they had had enough, they had gotten their food, they had gotten their drinks, we had given them a good time and it's time to go, time to go to bed and time to put the kids down, and time to go to work tomorrow and whatever else. And so we thought well, no one, if you were, if you were to send out a survey, no one would have said the games are too long, you guys, you guys need to do a two hour time. You know, no one would say that. They would probably say it was a great time, we had so much fun, we can't wait to come back, and that would lead us to not change anything.
Speaker 2:And so we said what would if, if, if we truly wanted to shorten the game, what would that look like? And so we settled on this idea of could there truly be a two-hour time limit on the game? Could we take all the boring, friction-filled things which is part of your customer journey, could we eliminate, begin eliminating the friction of a traditional baseball game and eliminate the breaks and the slow points and the times that action is removed from the game, and could we infuse more action, more fun, more rhythm to the game, more speed, more excitement to capture people's attention and eliminate those friction points? And so that's what we settled on these new rules. And you know you can't step out. There's no bunting, no mound visits, two-hour time limit. If a fan catches a foul ball, there's an out. You know all these ridiculous rules and it was not just to throw spaghetti at the wall and say I don't know, let's just see what happens. It was truly in a sense of can we root out the friction of a traditional experience and give fans what they really want? They don't know they want it, but what their behavior is telling us that they want.
Speaker 2:That led us on the journey of Banana Ball, and you mentioned the One City World Tour. We launched that in 2021, went to Mobile, alabama, went outside of Savannah to Mobile, alabama, and played in front of 7,000 people Amazing. And then tested it again seven-city world tour in 2022, went to again seven cities, some bigger stadiums, 8,000, 9,000 seat stadiums. And then we came to really a crossroads and we were still playing in our league format in 2022. But then we were also touring and people started getting confused. They were like, wait, which one's banana ball, which one's the party animals, which one's the league? When can I come catch a foul ball? For now, you know all those things. And we were like, oh crap, like we think we actually have to make a decision here because this is only going to cause more confusion.
Speaker 2:And we had the opportunity to actually leave our league, which was safe, dependable, predictable, reliable set of games, competition, all that stuff. And we said we actually think the future of this is going all in on banana ball. And so we did in 2023, went to 33 cities, as you mentioned, half a million people. And then, yeah, this year, 30 city or 29 cities, something like that Six major league stadiums, a million people were going on a cruise. All these crazy things. Major league stadiums, a million people. We're going on a cruise, all these crazy things. But it all starts and it continues to start with how are we providing the best experience for our fans and are we able to root out those traditional friction points that maybe they don't know their experience, but we see that they're experiencing and how do we solve those for them?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, I think what you guys are doing is just absolutely tremendous. And you know, not only are you playing major league teams which I'd love, I'd love to know how those conversations went when you call citizens, make park and say, hey, we'd like to play a banana ball in your park, Are you okay with that or did they come to you and say, would you guys come, you know, bring that on? Like, how did that? How did that transpire?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it actually a little bit of both, in a sense of we had played at these minor league facilities and spring training facilities, which are sometimes owned by the major league entities.
Speaker 2:So, for example, we played in West Palm Beach at the ballpark of the Palm Beaches, which is owned by, jointly owned and operated by, the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros. And look where we're playing this year, at the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros Park, and so, truly, it was like we proved it to them on a small scale. I think this is awesome. We know what we're doing, you know we're not, you know, psychopaths coming in and lighting your stadium on fire or anything like that, and that really honestly led to those conversations and similar with some of the others that we're playing at. We're able to just show them like, hey, it's really awesome, your affiliates are loving it. You know, is there a conversation for the future? And really, you know, one after another, one conversation led to the next, and here we are playing at six major league stadiums and you know it's 40,000 people filled to the top and it's an unbelievable, just surreal experience of that many people, you know, coming to watch this thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every time I talk about, you know, savannah and Bananas, the first question is have you been to a game? And you know I get to say yes and they're like man, we're trying. We're trying Like people want to come and the waiting list is huge. But not only are you playing at amazing stadiums, you have professional baseball players playing with you guys. You've had Johnny Damon play, jeremy Guthrie, dee Gordon, I think Curtis Granderson managed a game. I believe John Cena came to bat and charged him out. I saw that social media. That clip was great. And then you had Roger Clemens the Rocket. Like my childhood man Grew up watching him play with the Red Sox for so many years and the Yankees, and with the Astros as well. He pitched, I believe, at Minimay Park in Houston. Correct, with the Astros as well. He pitched, I believe, at Minute Maid Park in Houston, correct, in Houston.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, those guys are awesome because you know we try to treat them like humans. You know we don't use them as a prop. We don't use them as a little carrot to dangle out in front of people. You know we don't say come see Roger Clemens. You know, at Minute Maid Park tonight it's truly a surprise.
Speaker 1:No people that went to the games not know that, Roger. Cummings is out there. No one knows. No one knows, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:No one has known any of these people that are coming to games, which really makes it fun when we're able to make that announcement, literally live in front of the audience. You know the music plays, they see their jersey come out, you know we really get to hype them up and just make them feel like a superstar. And just make them feel like a superstar which they all are, generally superstars and it's an amazing experience for those fans and it kind of keeps the suspense for future stadiums what's going to happen in Boston, what's going to happen in Philly, so on and so forth, and so those moments are really cool and they get to really experience what banana ball is like and the understanding that, hey, this can be super competitive and and really talented and it can also be fun and we can also give a lot of fun to these fans who are coming, and so they get to experience both worlds of that, because the players are good.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're talented players, uh they're. They're very good ball players, but they're also into entertainment. They're trying new things. The backflip catching the outfield is one of my favorites. Uh, the center fielder running in and pitching off. You know jumping up and pitching Also in entertainment, they're trying new things. The backflip catch in the outfield is one of my favorites. The center fielder running in and pitching off. You know, jumping off and pitching off. I mean, I've watched so many of these things, man. It's just a lot of fun. The trick plays as a stat. It's just so much fun, man. I absolutely love all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:It is. They're super talented. You've got to be incredibly talented on the field and you've got to be a great entertainer and you've got to be great on social media, and that's a lot for a single person to be able to bring to the table. But the game itself, the speed and ability that's captured inside of the game, has to be quality, because fans are smart, people are smart, customers are smart, everyone's, everyone knows, you know, if they're seeing something legit or not, you know. And so in that, in that arc, that that arc of the story, at no point can someone say, ah, that was fake. You know that was that, was that was super duper fake and I could sniff it out. And so we want to make it really authentically competitive and and the talent has to be there and the guys know that. And then they also have to be fantastic performers as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I know that one of the things that you want fans to leave with is saying I can't believe they did this, whatever that is, and it leaves that anticipation of what. What do you think they're going to do next, what will they do next? And so I think you guys have done just a phenomenal job with that. It's so much fun to watch. I share with some of my friends on social media that we were going to be recording today, and so I asked for a little bit of a Q&A, so we got a little new segment today, Jared, just for you called Fan man.
Speaker 1:I like that all right, jared, here we go. We got several questions. We're going to run through real quick, uh, and so let's go go one by one. What were your biggest fears, and taking on something so unique in this industry, an established industry? What fears?
Speaker 2:did you guys have over that there's always a fear of, well, what will people, will people think right, and that's always that.
Speaker 2:I think that's that internal. You know, we're a little bit designed in a way that we do care what people think, right, whether good or bad. And you know, there's a sense of what about the people who like us, like what about all the people who've liked us? You know coming up and and you know, when we were day one and day 20 and day 366, and everyone in between you know, the people who were fans of us in the beginning, are we going to piss them off? And we never intentionally want to do that. Right, we're never saying like, well, we don't want to screw those people. But you know, whenever you change people, people are certainly always afraid of that concept like, oh, you're changing on me, well, I liked it the way it was, and we really have. We really wrestle with that and it still bothers us to this day, sometimes, like you know, feeling that we like abandoned. You know certain people who may not enjoy the way that the future is going to be and more traditional baseball fans that just kind of like seeing the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well there's the.
Speaker 2:You know, certain people who may not enjoy the way that the future is going to be, and more traditional baseball fans that just kind of like seeing the game. Yeah Well, there's the, there's the truth, there's a. So when we first came to Savannah, we we made people upset because we named the team something ridiculous and we were going to play, you know, college summer baseball and that that wasn't real Right. So those people were offended. Now, they weren't't, they weren't our fans in the beginning, so it didn't quite matter. We were probably never going to gain them as fans, and we gained some and that was really nice, and some of those people have stuck with us to this day. But then people, that people that became bananas fans, like in the beginning, there was a lot of heartache and headache when we transitioned to full time banana ball where folks thought, well, this is just a joke. Now you've taken away the thing that I liked in the beginning and you're going to make it something different. And so what we had to remind AR staff and be the fans was that we are going to continue to try to make this thing awesome. We are not trying to take anything away from you, we are just on this pursuit of making something like for lack of better English more awesome. You know, and and and.
Speaker 2:On this we're on this trajectory of, like, we exist to make baseball fun. That's what we do. We're here to make baseball fun and so, whatever, whatever path that takes us down, that's where we're going. It may look a little different along the way, but we're going to try to make baseball fun and so hopefully again it comes back to we've got to deliver a fans-first experience for people, and we know that it can't be chintzy and fake and it can't be circus and that's all the things that people thought it was going to be, and so that's why we've continued to commit to higher quality talent and we've introduced a third team and there's going to be a kind of a fourth quasi team coming and uh, like, we're just going to continue to focus on a, making baseball fun. That's going to be the end goal, or not the end goal, that's always the mission. But b along the way, continuing to show people this is a real thing, this is, this is something you're going to want to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Just come along for the ride for a little bit, and I remember a lady coming up to us at the end of the game last year in Savannah and she had a couple extra slippery bananas, probably. But she came up and said I wasn't supposed to like this, I really wasn't supposed to like this. I really wasn't supposed to like this. But man, I had fun. I had a lot of fun and I was like yes, this is it. Like you know, there's skepticism, and rightfully so. We're changing something, we're doing something different. But hopefully people see in our heart of hearts we're trying to make this thing more awesome for them. And if they don't like it, that's okay. That's not because we're trying to make them not like it. We're just trying to think about what the future could be for the long term, so that hopefully we have fans over years and years and years and years and don't just make a short-term decision just to make someone happy for a moment today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a great answer and the fact that you have a mission statement. You exist to make baseball fun. It's your North Star. Everything you do points to that direction. That's the power of a really good mission statement and a lot of the fact that you guys have that. One of the fans said I've been to several games and the all you can eat food is awesome. So the question is do we know the most most amount of burgers that a fan has consumed in one game? Is there a record?
Speaker 2:yeah, I don't know if there's. There certainly probably is a record. I do know there was a fan that came up to me one night and told me he had consumed about 24 is what he had counted, which you know. You just gotta high five those people and say well done on you, get after it yeah, I feel bad for him the next day or two after that that's right. 24 tough.
Speaker 1:That's right, 24. We're going to go with that. 24 burgers, that's. I would say that's like. That's like you know eating, you know 50 slices of pizza back in the day with the old pizza. You know, that's right. Um, all right. So uh, next question how, as an it might be inevitable to do that how do you keep going with promotions, tricks, enthusiasm, all that?
Speaker 2:We hit a wall in, you know, 2019, 2020, basically 2020 gave us a chance to actually take some time and just think, you know, a little bit. We didn't have anything else to do. And so the first iteration of our business was this league play. We had a certain amount of games 30 games, 29, 30, 31 games, you know, on average and we had a fixed capacity. We could only do, you know, so many seats, so many games. And so very quickly, we started selling out games, you know, basically towards the end of the 2016 season and then into the 2017, 18, 19 season 17, 18, and 19,. Every game sold out to the max. And really the only challenge, if you will, is like, all right, how can we sell it out faster? And like that's not a challenge, that's not fun, that's kind of gross. And we realized pretty quickly man, our business is just going to flatline and it doesn't matter how many skits or bits or promotion, it doesn't matter how how many of those things we come up with, we can only just do this and that's not fun for anybody. And so version two came, when we started launching this, you know, second vision of what the bananas could be and the concept. The question was asked what is it going to take for our brand to be active, building fans 24-7, 365? How can we reach the next fan? And we started thinking about, okay, outside of Savannah, and you know, could that lead to better content? Could that lead us to reach new fans? Could we break out of the? And we start asking all these like hypothetical, what if? Type questions, and that led us to this concept of the one city world tour in the seven city world, and so on and so forth. And so then, same thing, we kind of had this pivot point in 2022 where we said, okay, we're still stuck in this league, this is holding us back. Okay, now, boom, 2023, let's break out. We're to do the whole thing, we're fully in control. And so that's where we're at now, today, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Speaker 2:We just quietly launched our next vision, which I'm not going to talk about because it's pretty confidential, but like that next vision is now okay, we're here today. Like that next vision is now okay, we're here today. Where are we going to be in 2026, 2027, so on and so forth? And the whole thing is built around building fans, building fans, building fans. If we don't build fans, we're dead. We do. You know we're going backwards, and so every idea, every concept, every it's a video or a new event or a new team or whatever everything is focused on building fans. Everything has to circle around that. That's what our flywheel is built around is truly building fans. That's where we're going.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to hear the new vision. Unfortunately, no secrets today, but I can't wait for that to come out. Next question Did you create all the rules in one meeting for Banana Ball, or did you guys add rules as you went?
Speaker 2:We had a list of eight or nine, I think, to start off with. We tested these in 2018, which is crazy for people to hear. They see it today. They're like, oh, you guys just started this yesterday. It's like, actually we started testing this in 2018, which is crazy and started toying around with literally the game theory. It sounds super nerdy, but there's real game theory that allows.
Speaker 1:What does this rule do to the rest of the game? What is the rule?
Speaker 2:correct. What's like is there does. Does human behavior take over? They start strategizing. Um, early on, the concept was more like match play in golf, where it was, like, you know, the first, the first one to basically upend the number of points really five and there's nine innings in a game, so the first person to win five we thought you've won the game. What we found out quickly was, oh crap, someone could win five, nothing, and the game could be over in like an hour, and that's kind of gross and literally like game theory took over. So we started changing things. So that's what led us to every inning counts, I'm sorry, every run counts as a point at the end of the ninth inning, and so now the ninth inning, every run counts. That allows for comebacks and walk-offs and bottom of the ninths and really fun things like that.
Speaker 2:The showdown was a similar concept. We knew what we wanted to be in the beginning, uh, but we had to change things based off of like walks and hit by pitches and things like that. Uh, this new rule that we've implemented this year, well, two, two. We implemented one last year, which was the fan challenge rule, and so you know what better way for fans to get involved. You know, everyone thinks they're the smartest person in the room when they're watching the game, but they always get the call right. And so when a call goes wrong and one went horribly wrong last year in Tulsa or Oklahoma City, one or the other we allow the fans to challenge the game and go to review, and so that's amazing. I love that. And then, yeah, and then this last one that we came up with this year was the golden batter rule, which you know, in sports and and all and all other sports basketball, football, hockey, soccer, et cetera when the game is on the line, you want your player, best player, to have the ball on offense in their hands.
Speaker 2:You know to win the game and baseball, you can't do that because of the lineup. You know the circulation of the hands. You know to win the game In baseball, you can't do that because of the lineup. You know the circulation of the lineup. You know, unfortunately, you could have your worst player come up to bat when the game is on the line. And so we said, well, that doesn't make sense. We should be able to have the best player you know versus the best pitcher come up to the line. So the coach one time out of the game, out of the, out of the game, the coach has the ability to insert, you know, reinsert basically any player into the lineup to hit again or hit in a certain position to hopefully potentially win the game. So you know again, always iterating, always thinking about the next thing, but the concept always is make baseball fun, make baseball fun, make baseball fun okay, a few more questions here.
Speaker 1:This has been great. Some good fan mail. Travis winnen wants to know why did you single him out to not win the ticket lottery?
Speaker 2:oh goodness, yeah, I, I have somewhat stopped wearing you know bananas gear publicly uh because I get that question.
Speaker 2:We had two, two and a half two, two and a half million people join the lottery this year and we only opened it for a month. We literally was like it opens on October, whatever fifth or sixth this year, it's going to close, you know, november 30th, December 1st, something like that. So you know six weeks, something like that. And yeah, two, two and a half million people, we like double verified them, triple verified them, and then you know we only had so many tickets and so gave people a crack at getting five or four or five tickets and unfortunately left people out.
Speaker 1:So it's something we're working on. You can't confirm that you did single out Travis.
Speaker 2:Specifically from that. Yeah, exactly, Appreciate that.
Speaker 1:No no reason needed that. You did single out Travis Holden, though Specifically. We can't confirm that. Yes, exactly, appreciate that no reason needed, just single him out, which is good. Do you think the two-hour time limit will ever hit MLB or two-and-a-half-hour time limit? Do you think they'll ever consider something like that?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think a time limit. Obviously, they made a lot of changes this year to, or last year to, pace, which has been fantastic.
Speaker 1:Pitch clock. I think there's an inning time between pitch clock between innings.
Speaker 2:You know some mountain visit stuff, some you know not as many pitching changes, things like that, and it's so smart, you know, just to just pick up the pace. Now I know the players sometimes players and coaches and managers, like you know we heard this from our players and coaches they don't mentally have a time on their mind like it's nine innings, like they're here for the game. But you know the fans, the fans gosh, they they're doing stuff. They're coming from work, they're bringing their kids, they're bringing their family members, they got to go home, they got to get, they got to get back out in traffic, they got to catch a train, whatever, and so you got to have that that push and pull of like, okay, we want the game be legit, we don't want to interrupt the competitiveness of the game, but like we got to do something great for fans and so I think they're making some great changes, you know, to be able to just pick up that pace.
Speaker 2:But also there's there's a lot of money on the line. When you start, you know tinkering with, with time, especially broadcasts and commercials, and you know food inside the stadium and things like that. So a lot at stake and you know they're going to move slower towards something than we would because we don't have as much at stake. We can just move fast and kind of break things around. They got a little bit more that they have to deal with, which I don't envy. To be able to make sure that one change doesn't all of a sudden dramatically affect the entire organization. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, not sure if you can answer this one A little bit of a serious question. How do you balance operating costs with player talent compensation to ensure a quality fan experience? I'm assuming as the players get better and things get bigger, you've got to pay them more. Your stadiums are more expensive. How do you balance all that to ensure a quality fan experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know we continue to to up the pay of the players. You know they are, they are. It's extremely competitive. You know, compared to the minor leagues it's basically higher than any minor league player that's currently getting paid. I know that much. They're not getting paid major league salaries Not yet, one day they will.
Speaker 2:But we're going to continue to invest in that, invest in that talent. And really, you know we have to be financially sound all the time. You know we don't have outside capital. We don't have, you know, venture capital. We don't have, you know, a huge debt load. We don't have a bunch of cash that we're sitting on from, you know, equity stake, any of that stuff. We don't have any of that.
Speaker 2:And so, truly, our business runs on building fans and creating content and creating live events. We take that and we reinvest it back into better live events or better content or better talent. And you know, sometimes we have to spend money, obviously on the operational stuff, the nitty gritty stuff. But we're taking all of that, reinvesting it back into the flywheel so that we can build more fans. And we're going to continue to do that and I think we have some pretty talented guys and you know we're beginning to be able to pay them what they're worth and and also become pretty competitive in a sense of you know, someone might be playing minor league baseball and look over here and say, man, that looks pretty awesome, paid more, you know less games have more fun, play in front of a million people, build my social profile, get taken care of really well, and so you know people talk about being competitive for the customers.
Speaker 2:There's a whole marketplace. You know you got to compete in the marketplace of talent as well, and I think people maybe forget that sometimes Like, oh, people will just show up to work for me and they'll love it. They will, but you've got to compete. You've got to get up every morning and compete for it, and if you don't, someone else will take them from you.
Speaker 1:Yep, and you said something really important too is that you guys are helping them enhance their social profiles and their own brand individually out in the marketplace, which is going to bring them more opportunities down the road. I mean, I could foresee a Savannah Bananas player in a commercial like a State Farm commercial someday, like that's very possible.
Speaker 2:They've already gotten some of those opportunities. A few of our guys, you know, came with some bigger opportunities already and do a great job. You know we try to help them out in some of those things. But yeah, we've, we've found that, you know they're they're, you know, wonderfully popular. We started selling player jerseys this year. We're rolling out more collectibles and card sets and things like that and it just proves that, you know, continuing to invest in those pieces because it's great for everybody, Great for them, Great for our friends, Great for the business, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:And that leads to the final question of the fan mail segment, jared. And that is what are the chances? What are the chances, jared, that I can get a one-day contract with the Bananas I?
Speaker 2:mean, I feel like I'm ready, put me in coach. You got to come to tryouts. You got to come to tryouts. You got to talk with our coaching staff. They're invite only now. I'm literally coming to tryouts. Man Invite only now.
Speaker 1:Okay, what are the chances I get an invite to tryouts? How about that? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Due to the number of people wanting to come. It's been really cool. They've had, I mean, thousands of people interested and, I think, know, I think, I think they only do, you know, a couple hundred invites, because that pool of talent continues to get, you know, super intense.
Speaker 1:Maybe Savannah bananas fantasy camp one day. Maybe that's talking. We did talk about that. Maybe we'll do that. Well, that is this segment of fan mail. We have one more segment, darren, we're going to get out of here. This is a quick one. This is a little trivia. We've got a Bananas Trivia. We went behind the scenes and talked to some of your coworkers to get some questions to see if you know all the answers to this Savannah Banana Trivia. So here we go. This is Go Bananas Trivia, all right. All right, as quick as you can, jared, here's the questions. All right, all right, as quick as you can, jared, here's the questions. Give us the answers. How many all-time banana ball games have been played?
Speaker 2:All-time banana ball games is like 130, 133, 4, something like that.
Speaker 1:Ooh, right, 134. Nice job, that's impressive. Got the count Very good. Okay, next question what special banana?
Speaker 2:ball game. Did Pilgrim Press appear at Pilgrim Press, by the way, is the appropriate pronunciation I appeared at. Fansgiving which was a very scary night in our history.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that's on social media somewhere. Next question what is the fastest banana ball game of all time?
Speaker 2:I know it was against a different opponent. It was against the Blue Crabs. I believe that's correct.
Speaker 1:And it was definitely not an hour.
Speaker 2:Not an hour 50. Hour 20 is actually interesting. Hour 34, I think, is the answer if I remember correctly, that is correct.
Speaker 1:One hour and 34 minutes, man three for three Blue Crabs. Very good, yep, that's right. Okay, next question how many fans caught foul balls across last year's tour? Oh jeez, oh jeez. Last year's tour, 61, 55, or 20? I can't believe we're given multiple choice. This is too easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is tough.
Speaker 1:I want to say doesn't sound right. We play way more games than that. 55, maybe Close, it's actually 61. That's right. Give the fans the credit Jared that they're due. Next question what is the fastest inning ever thrown in banana ball? This is recently and I saw it on social.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, it was under a minute. There we go, of course. It was under a minute, so 55, I believe.
Speaker 1:That's correct, and Zach Phillips was the pitcher that pulled that off. 55 seconds for a three-out inning, that's absolutely tremendous. He's very quick, that is All right. Final question what is the record for most trick plays in a single game?
Speaker 2:It happened at the end of the season Collectively, I guess, is probably the question Correct, so 19,. I would think. Probably the question Correct, so 19,. I would think 19 is correct. It happened in Milwaukee, that's right yeah they were on a tear last year at the end, trying to do as many as they possibly could Jared.
Speaker 1:That's impressive, man. I think you got like seven out of eight or whatever it was. I think you only missed one, and that was just the fans foul balls, which again, that's my favorite rule. You know, that was just the fans foul balls, which again that's my favorite rule. I love it. It brings the fans right into it, which is awesome. All right, so what can you share with us? What's next for the Savannah Bananas? Anything you can share about what's coming up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, our big test this year is taking 2,500 Bananas fans on a cruise to the Bahamas, where you know why not put everything on a cruise ship for three or four days?
Speaker 1:I love to cruise. Man, you got my attention already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be nuts. We just did a site visit the other day and we're working on all of our plans and it's going to test us. It really is going to test us a lot. Usually we entertain people for a two-hour game and an hour and a half before that game and this is like four days, you know, like 12 hours a day, and our players are going to be super accessible. Our staff and characters are going to be super accessible. You know there's no baseball field right, there's, you know, all these different talent-based stages. Uh, so we've got some ideas. You know we've got some really fun, creative ideas. I think people are going to love, but it's going are going to love, but it's going to stretch us. I think it's going to stretch us in a good way. I hope what we learn is there's things that we can take from that experience and then bring them to games in the future. That's our big one that's coming up in a few months.
Speaker 1:That's exciting. I would love to somehow get on that cruise ship. Man. You've got my attention, jared. You've definitely got my attention, which is great. Jared, thank you so much for your time today, man. It's been a blast having you on the show. You guys are clearly, clearly standing out. Thank you, we'll talk to you soon, man. Bye, all right, everybody, make sure you come back every Tuesday for an Carrier Summit coming up here this month, in just a week or so, april 22nd through 24th in Kansas City. Go to BrokerCarrierSummitcom. Also, be sure to listen to us every Tuesday night at 6 pm Eastern time on Wreaths Across America Radio. We're on their Trucking Tuesday lineup. And make sure, again, you come back every Tuesday for an episode of Standing Out and remember as Jesse