Always be the challenger, with Savannah Bananas founder Jesse Cole

**Jeff Berman** (0:01)
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Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale Summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reid Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad and more will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great or you want to build something great, we want you there with us too. Join us at mastersofscale.com/apply26.
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**Jesse Cole** (2:01)
In a few hours, we get to see thousands of people that had this game on the bucket list.
They're waiting outside, they're wearing their gear. As soon as they see us, they start jumping up and down, getting excited to high-five us. That's not just players and cast.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:17)
That's our staff.

**Jesse Cole** (2:18)
They get excited. Oh, you work for the team?
And if you can find that, and continue to build that, and talk about what matters most, that it's not about the money, it's not about the sales, it's not about the revenue, it's not even about the growth. It's about the amazing moments that you get to create every day, and feel that. It's the most contagious thing in the world.

**Jeff Berman** (2:44)
This is Masters of Scale. I'm Jeff Berman, your host. This week on the show, Jesse Cole, the name you may not know off the bat. But Jesse is the founder of the Savannah Bananas and Fans First Entertainment, and if you've turned on ESPN in the last year, you've seen the man in the yellow suit. That's Jesse. He's part PT. Barnum, part Walt Disney, and he's scaling a whole new kind of sport with his fast-paced circus-style version of professional baseball. Jesse's relentless dedication to his fans offers important insights for anyone in the business of delighting customers, which really should be all of us.
We are on location today. We are recording live at Angel Stadium, where the Savannah Bananas and the Indianapolis Clowns are playing tonight, and we are with the greatest showman on Earth, Jesse Cole. Welcome to Masters of Scale.

**Jesse Cole** (3:38)
Excited to be with you guys. I've been a big fan of the show from when it first launched. So we've shared the episodes with so much of our teams, the people on our teams, it's been great.

**Jeff Berman** (3:45)
Well, we're huge fans, but you do.
We were just talking before we turn the mics and cameras on about how you all have been capturing content, hooptrain style for a long time now. We're producing a movie of the Bananas and Fans First. We might open on you leading the crowd and singing Cold Plays Yellow. Can you set the stage for us so we can open the show there?

**Jesse Cole** (4:07)
Well, as someone who grew up south of Boston, a huge Red Sox fan, my dad and I, we went to so many games, back when tickets were $5, we would sit down in the bleachers, and I was a shy, introverted kid growing up, and my dad had the opportunity to win this challenge for me to become an honorary bad boy. And so when I was five years old, I saw my first ever Red Sox game, but I was in the dugout before the game. But I was sitting by myself, and one player came over and sat down next to me, and it was Hall of Fame, or Lisa, and he spent 20 minutes with me. This shy, introverted, five-year-old kid, he didn't have to.
And that moment changed everything for me, because I saw him as this larger-than-life pitcher. I saw the Red Sox now as this larger-than-life team, and I vowed to one day play at Fenway Park. And so I put everything I can into my baseball career. I was fortunate to have professional scouts watching me, a Division I scholarship, and then tore everything on my shoulder, and that ended my career. Just like that, I was done. And so that dream of playing at Fenway was over, at least I thought, until we started in the front office and how to make baseball fun. And what people don't realize is we spent 10 years with this team in Gastonia, North Carolina, that no one knew about just trying to craft what we were doing to get people excited about coming to a baseball game before we started the Savannah Bananas. And then we started the Bananas, failed miserably, lost everything. And then after many years, made it successful, took the show on the road, and was able to sell out Fenway Park with 37,000 fans and everyone singing yellow and lighting up the sky.