Savannah Bananas: Growing the Greatest Show in Baseball

Co-founded by Jesse and Emily Cole, the Savannah Bananas delighted fans with their unique brand of baseball. The barnstorming team delivered its high-octane entertainment in sold-out ballparks across the country, including Major League Baseball (MLB) stadiums. The team played Banana Ball, a derivative of conventional baseball that offered a faster-paced, more surprising game filled with trick plays, wild stunts, crazy contests, and unlikely dancing. The Bananas accumulated more TikTok followers than any MLB team, and sold merchandise to fans around the world.

While the Savannah Bananas thrived, MLB experienced declining attendance and television viewership, particularly among young people, until several significant rule changes were introduced in 2023. These modifications shortened the length of games and increased the amount of exciting action. Attendance rose, though not yet to previous peak levels. MLB owners began to discuss further radical changes, including one new rule that bore a striking resemblance to a distinctive feature of Banana Ball. Baseball traditionalists reacted quite negatively to some of these ideas.

Fans First Entertainment, the parent company of the Savannah Bananas, had bold ambitions. The organization planned to launch its fourth barnstorming team in 2025. The coming season included games at seventeen MLB ballparks and four football stadiums.  Fans First aimed to operate a six-team league the following year.

Would people embrace the idea of an entire league of teams playing Banana Ball? Could the teams fill larger ballparks and stadiums around the world year after year? Perhaps most interestingly, would the Bananas influence the evolution of the MLB game, or would the MLB owner and fans resist bold changes, such as the Golden At-Bat Rule, to attract new fans?

• Evaluate the distinctive competitive positioning of an entrepreneurial company in a tradition-bound industry.
• Apply “blue ocean strategy” frameworks to understand the development of a company’s distinctive competitive position.
• Examine how analogous reasoning can play a role in strategy formulation.
• Identify key design thinking principles that an organization applied to develop a high-quality customer experience.
• Analyze why industry incumbents faced with declining performance metrics are slow to make strategic changes.
• Evaluate the tensions that incumbents face as they try to adapt their strategy to changing external conditions while not alienating long-time loyal customers.