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“They Always Said They Didn’t See It, But We Did.”
After 10 years, the Savannah Bananas held their first Banana Bowl Championship to wrap up the 2026 season. It was held at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. because the team needed a stadium that could handle a large crowd. Their home venue, Grayson Stadium in Savannah, GA, only holds about 5,000 fans and the Banana Bowl drew in nearly 41,000 fans.
Shortly after the Banana Bowl wrapped up, a teaser dropped for The Banana Ball Film which shows the team’s journey to success. The film features original music such as “Look What We Made” by Oscar and Tony-winning songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman and La La Land).
“They (the fans) are not making fun of our game, they’re making our game fun.”
Cole credits all of their success to the fans. As he built the Savannah Bananas from the ground up, he promised he would always put the fans first and he showed that in two big ways.
They did everything themselves.
The Savannah Bananas did everything from figuring out their food without outside vendors, producing merchandise, using their own ticket-selling company, and broadcasting by themselves. They did this to have full control over the prices because they wanted to keep everything affordable. Cole said they do their own broadcasting because he wanted to figure out what was best for the fans and not be told what to do.
They prioritized entertainment over marketing.
Did you know over 90% of the Savannah Bananas’ videos on social media don’t have a call to action? Instead they use attention-grabbing titles and captions such as “Can’t Believe This Happened After He Pulled a Hammy” which shows a player limping then breaking out into Cha Cha Slide with his teammates. And similar to what we do as strategists, Cole stayed on top of current trends and implemented them into the games such as dancing to some of Taylor Swift’s newly released songs and several viral dance trends.
I think the best part about all of this is that Cole found success with methods people would have never thought of. The Savannah Bananas have a successful marketing strategy because Cole just wanted to entertain fans. He didn’t take the easiest route and there were times when he even made things harder on himself but it all paid off because it got him to where he is now. At the end of the day, he’s just a man who really loves baseball and wants to share that with millions of people. This goes to show that there is no linear path to how you market or build a business. You can have the best strategy in the world but if the passion isn’t there, how are you supposed to build a following?
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