Choreographed dances, stilts, backflips, a man in a banana suit…could this be anything but Banana Ball? While traditional baseball may be America’s pastime, Banana Ball takes the game to a whole new level with 11 additional rules that make the game more entertaining and more fast-paced. Having started in 2016, the league now has four teams, the Savannah Bananas, the Party Animals, the Firefighters and the Texas Tailgaters, who play all around the US to sold out stadiums (every single time!) With 3 million fans now joining the waitlist for tickets each season, this game is a phenomenon not to be missed. We spoke to Kara Heater, VP of Marketing at Fans First Entertainment, the company behind the Banana Ball League, to find out how their mission statement ‘Fans First. Entertain Always.’ plays out in every game.

The game of Banana Ball is always such a unique experience for both fans in person and on social media. How do you make sure you are consistently surprising and delighting your audiences?

Kara Heater, VP Marketing at Savannah Bananas, Fans First Entertainment

When we started, there were only nine rules of Banana Ball. Now there's 11, because we've realized that we are building this game from scratch. We need to make adjustments, and it's okay to change things. Everything we've done has been a test. We definitely want to make sure that we're never growing too fast. We've been very careful in making sure that we're scaling our growth. So in full transparency, last year, we could have done more than the seven MLB stadiums we went to this year, but we wanted to make sure that we could nail the experience that the fans were getting at those MLB and bigger venues. So, it's really about making sure that we're scaling our growth and making sure that the fans first experience is growing along with us.

A lot of that comes from just listening to our fans – what the fans are liking, what they're not liking. It’s making sure that we adjust our show and the experience for the fans when they're coming to games or even online as well, and we're not just doing the same thing every single night.

Our entertainment team, our marketing team, our video team, we make it a point to add in at least 10 new things to the script every single night. A lot of the things are staples that stay the same when you're at a Savannah Banana show, but then you also see very new things every time you come. And then, obviously, with it being a baseball game or a Banana Ball game, the game is going to be different every time too, which helps.

The Bananas head coach Tyler Gillum always says that we want guys who can flip the switch. They can go into a game and put on the best performance of their life and be competitive about baseball and want to win, but the second they walk off that field, they flip that switch to dance with fans and sign autographs and be fans first for everyone in the stadium. We're always trying to just ‘plus’ the experience for our fans and make sure that it is a different experience every single time they come.

Where do you get your inspiration for all these new pieces of content every week?

All over. We actually have weekly idea session meetings called OTT meetings. OTT stands for over the top, so pitching crazy things that we can do in the game. We have one person represented from each department, so one from the video team, one from the entertainment team, one from the marketing team and one from our broadcast team. Basically we are just sitting down and pitching as many ideas as we can think of for each team. Sometimes, we'll have specific buckets like: this week we're bringing trending ideas from Tiktok. Other times, it's: we're bringing ideas for walk ups that involve a hose. So we just did a whole video of a guy getting soaked in the walk up, so stuff like that. And then from there, we basically choose what's going to go into the game that weekend, and then we have rehearsals. And then it's showtime on game day.

It's very similar to how SNL does their idea pitching, table read, rehearsals, showtime. Things can get cut in rehearsals too, if they're not up to standard. So, we have those meetings for content pieces and then the entertainment team specifically does another idea set for promotion, or what happens in between each half inning like dizzy bat or stuff like that. They come up with some wild ideas and that definitely keeps it fun and crazy during the game too.

I would say we pull more inspiration from industries outside of the sports world, more than we do the sports world, just because, again, we're trying to do things people have never seen on a baseball field before. So, that means pulling some inspiration from Cirque du Soleil or the Britney Spears show in Vegas or something like that. We're always looking for things that are totally outside of the box, that you would never imagine would happen in a baseball game.

Often, when Challengers break with the status quo, they do so by denying the assumptions of their audience. What assumptions do the Savannah Bananas deny?

A lot of people assume that we're just something for kids, that this is fun for kids, but it's not for adults. But we have everyone from all ages, all different backgrounds, all different demographics coming to our games and relating to us on social media. Our whole goal is making sure that there's someone for everyone. So, we have our Banana Nanas, which is our senior citizen dance team. So, grandmas come to the game, and they're like, I want to do that next year. We also have our Banana Splits at some games, which is our younger dance team that knows how to do all the crazy flips and splits and all that stuff. So younger kids can see how cool it is. And then each player has built up their own personality and character. So, some of them really like hunting, some of them really like fashion and any fan can find a player to really connect with. You could say that that's kind of our premise. We want to make sure that there's someone or something for everyone to enjoy, and we really try to hold true to that.

However, there are definitely people that don't like us, and that's okay. We're never going to be everyone's cup of tea. For example, baseball traditionalists, so those people who are just tried and true baseball lovers, they don't get into it, and that's okay. We've managed to flip a few, but not all. They have their thing. We have ours. And that's okay. It's cool though, when we can convert those people or show that it's a different experience in a different game. We don't want to be compared to baseball. We're trying to be in our own league, so that we don't have those competitors. We want to be something different from baseball. We want to be Banana Ball. So, it’s really cool when you can see somebody who is a big-time baseball fan who can also appreciate Banana Ball. Half of our staff are baseball traditionalists, but they can also appreciate that changes needed to be made to the game, and we're doing something really cool here.

What sets the Savannah Bananas apart from traditional baseball teams but also other forms of entertainment? How do you consistently raise the bar when it comes to the experience you deliver?

I think the biggest thing is how true we actually hold to our mission statement, which is: Fans first. Entertain always. In everything we do, we're always making sure that we come back to that and asking ourselves, is this fans first? If the answer is no, we're going to go back to the drawing table every single time.

From a marketing standpoint, when we post anything on social media, we're always asking ourselves, is it fans first? Does this make baseball fun? That is our entire goal. We are trying to change the game of baseball and make it more fun than it ever has been before. So, we're constantly trying to think of things that have never been done on a baseball field. Our strategy and mindset when it comes to the live shows and for social media is: is this shareable? Are we proud enough to share it on our own personal pages with our friends and family? And if the answer is no, then why in the world would we be excited to share it to millions of fans on the team pages? When we're on social, we're keeping up with all the trends and all the algorithm changes, and making sure that our constant is that our content is never stagnant and boring. We're always trying to ‘plus’ it and think of the next cool thing we can do for our followers, because a lot of people can't come to games, whether it be because we don't come close to them, or they're in a different country, etc. So, it's about making sure that the experience we're providing online is as cool as the one in person.

One of your core values is ‘fewer things, done better’ which we would call ‘sacrifice to overcommit’. Can you give us an example of where you’ve actioned this?

The best example I can give is through our partnerships and sponsorships. So, when we first started, we had ads on the outfield wall and some ads in the game. We had to post things on social. But in 2020, we actually eliminated all traditional sponsorships and partnerships. We took all the ads down, because we felt they weren't providing any value to our fans. So, we took a very different approach to partnerships, and now we only have three official partners: Dunkin’, Body Armor, and Wilson EvoShield and Louisville Slugger who provide our equipment. So, with Dunkin’ Donuts for example, what we do is, in the game, we have a donut batter. So, for whoever the Bananas are playing, one hitter on the other team is designated the donut batter, and if he strikes out, the crowd gets free donuts through vouchers we hand out. And the players actually go and throw Munchkin donut holes into the crowd for people to eat right then and there. And so not only is that providing value for the fans, but it's also creating an experience. They get to remember that 1,000s of people were just screaming “Donut!” at the same time in hopes that this guy strikes out. They got excited when he did strike out. And then they get to remember it all when they go to the Dunkin’ the next day and cash in their voucher for a free donut. Dunkin’ also does some really cool appearances with us where fans will get the opportunity to come meet four players, two from each team or cast members, and get to hang out with them in a totally different setting. It's very intimate. It's very personal, which is really, really cool for the fans to experience. So, that's an example of fewer things, done better. We had all these partnerships, and we felt that this is just not working, but now, we can fully focus on making these three partnerships that we have the best of the best, not only for us, but for our fans as well.

Brands with a Challenger Mindset often view constraints as fuel for creativity. How do the Savannah Bananas see them?

Our team owner always says constraints foster creativity, so we're on the same page there. For us, playing in new stadiums is always a different experience. We always have to figure out how we're going to film things, how we're going to create this walk up, how we're going to activate fans in different areas of the ballpark. So that's a constraint that we have in every single stadium we go to, because only a few people go and do a site visit for it. We go in blind, in a sense, because you can look up pictures, but you don't know how long it's going to take walking down the stairs to get to the dugout.

We have also started to put some constraints in play for ourselves with having new teams come on board. So, we started with the Bananas. We added the Party Animals. Now, we also have the Firefighters and the Tailgaters. And we realized with the Bananas and the Party Animals, that while their brands and brand tone and strategy are very different, they do a lot of similar things. It's dancing. It's a lot of the similar show pieces, just in a different way. So, with these new teams, we really want to make sure that the experience fans will get is completely different from what they've seen in a Bananas or Party Animals game. Obviously, you're still going to get Banana Ball. You're still going to get the fun stuff. But how do we make it not just a ‘rinse and repeat’ for a different team? And that's for everything from their live show, their social media presence, their email, everything. So, we've put some red tape down for ourselves. We said for the Firefighters team, they won't dance. It doesn't make sense for them to dance. They're a heroic team. They're all about strength and that all-American feel. So, they can bop around on the sideline if a good song comes on, but they won't be doing the lip-syncing walk ups that the Bananas do. Instead, they will be flying through a ring of fire, maybe on a dirt bike – that kind of stuff.

So, the biggest constraints we're setting this year are these new teams and making sure that we're really ‘plusing’ the experience and pushing the bar to create a whole new experience for the fans at these games, with these new teams.

What are the other touchpoints that Savannah Bananas delivers differently on? How does the brand experience go beyond the game itself?

We want to make sure that we are providing the best show ever. And that doesn't always mean just in the game. So, we've actually added the Before the Peel Show just last year, because we're continuing to grow the show around the actual show, I guess you would say. For example, in Tampa Bay, fans started showing up at 11am. They were tailgating in the parking lot, and then our pre show started at 12. We were like, “Okay, we're going to entertain them for two hours, because they want to be here, and they want the full experience. We're going to make it the best we can.” So, that means all of our cast going out there. Some of the players sang karaoke, some of them did dances, some of them did trivia. Our broadcasters even got out there. So, there's a lot of cool opportunities just to continue ‘plussing’ the experience for those fans. And then at about like 2:30 all the players actually went out and did a full signing with all of the fans.

We really want to make sure that we're continuing to break down that fourth wall. We want our players to feel like real people, like fans can get to know them, and a lot of that is just human interaction. So, whether it be before the game or in the game or after the game, players are always bumping around to different parts of the stadium. They are making those ‘fans first moments’ with our fans, whether that be just sitting down and chatting with them for a bit, signing a ball, taking a picture, any of that fun stuff. And then after the game, we also have what we call our Post-Game Plaza Parties. So that's when the Banana Band, our DJ, and the Party Down Band (the Party Animals band), go out and play a full set, and fans can just not leave if they don't want to leave. Some people want to keep the night riding, and we're here to do that with them. So, it's a lot of fun and all the cast and crew just goes out and dances. It's one final hurrah, and then at the end of each night, all the fans, cast and players put their arms around each other, and we sing ‘Stand by Me’. At the end of that, we give one little countdown that says “Fans first on three.” And all the fans and the players and cast get to shout out “Fans first!” It just makes fans and us as staff, cast, players, feel a part of something special.

And that's what sets us apart, in a lot of ways, is just trying to do things that are so different from the experience you would get elsewhere.

“Fans First. Entertain Always.”: Kara Heater, VP of Marketing at Fans First Entertainment