The Athletic Business Podcast: Jesse Cole, Owner, Savannah Bananas

The Savannah Bananas have emerged as a TikTok sensation, garnering more than three million followers to Banana Ball — the team’s unique brand of baseball. As owner and ringleader of the Bananas, Jessie Cole has managed to deliver an experience that sometimes resembles a circus for all the on-field and in-the-stands antics that take place on game day at 4,000-seat Grayson Stadium. Among the many unique nuances of Banana Ball, batters may hit from stilts, games have a two-hour time limit, and if a fan catches a ball in the stands, the batter is out. AB executive editor Andy Berg caught up with Cole, this year’s AB Show keynote, to talk about how he reimagined the national pastime and in doing so attracted a broad fanbase to a sport that in its traditional form has often been deemed by many as slow, boring and stale.