Latest / CBN Sports 1-ON-1 / Ep. 8 Savannah Bananas

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Ep. 8 Savannah Bananas · CBN Sports 1-ON-1

• Will Dawson: Welcome to CBN Sports One-on-One, where you'll hear exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in sports right here on the CBN Sports Podcast Network. I'm your host, Will Dawson. If you're like most of us and you love sports, but you're tired of the dark side of sports culture, me-focused athletes, or even organizations that bow to an unbiblical belief system, we think you're gonna love this podcast. There's no yelling, no sensationalism. Just great conversations with athletes and coaches who recognize that their purpose is bigger than their sport. Well, by now you've likely heard of the Savannah Bananas. It's baseball and ringling brothers together on a baseball field. On today's episode, we have Bananas President Jared Orton. Jared and his wife Kelsey were both recent college graduates and newlyweds when they moved from North Carolina to Savannah to help start a franchise that no one knew about. The organization had little money, as did the couple. And their faith was completely in God's plan and direction in their life. You'll hear this couple's heart as the no-name banana ball became a global sensation. Let's jump right in. Before the Savannah Bananas, Jared, where were you and what were you doing? I had done an internship with a minor league team back home in Burlington, North Carolina with the Royals, and kind of just fell in love with this idea of you could have a stadium and a team and an entertainment venue. ⁓ And so when I was in school, I reached out to Jesse who was running the team in Gastonia, North Carolina, Jesse Cole. And I said, you know, you don't know me, I don't know you, but I just want to come learn about this thing. And so we met in 2012 and I started kind of working through things there, and that's kind of how this whole journey started basically. I was finishing up my degree at High Point University, and Jared and I had been dating for a couple years. Kelsey was graduating in May of 2015, and so we get this call about You know, from Jesse, who I'd always stayed in touch with. His comment was, What do you think about going down to Savannah, starting a team in Savannah, Georgia? It really threw us both for a loop because I had I never thought that I would leave North Carolina. Now I didn't know the history that you know the team was you know in bad shape and the stadium was kind of you know crumbling and all these, you know, terrible things that were happening in the moment. But this idea of like, wow, starting something new, that would be really cool to be a part of. And maybe this seems like the chance that we should take. So it was twenty fifteen, I was twenty-two, he was twenty-four, we were newly married in a new city, and we didn't really have a lot of disposable income at that point. So ⁓ to say it was a struggle was ⁓ was an understatement. And then I get the keys, you know, the first day to Grayson Stadium, and you just feel like an imposter in that point because who are we to do this? Are we like, come on. It was Really a struggle early on. People just did not know who we were, what we were. We were outsiders, you know, from the business. She and I are kind of looking at each other like, ⁓ my gosh, like what did we get ourselves into? You know, we don't come from like big money, venture capital. We're trying to scrape by as best we can. So we started with very little. And when we're not selling tickets, we're not selling sponsorships or not getting anybody believing in this thing, we didn't have a logo at that point. ⁓ we weren't selling any merchandise. And so we get to January and basically the the money that we'd started with, we're out, you know. There was a word that I heard, and that is bankrupt. When you hear that, what is your reaction? Because you're already like, are we are we even supposed to be here? And then you hear that word, what does that do to you? So I remember walking around the stadium with Jesse. He was like, I gotta tell ya, we overdrafted our accounts. You know, we got payroll coming up in a couple weeks. We're gonna have to figure something out. Well, I don't know what to do. I've never been in this spot. I'm 24 years old. I don't know where you're we're gonna get money from. D was it trying for your faith? It definitely was. For me, it was a lot of questioning our purpose here. We felt like we heard the Lord so clearly tell us that savannah's the move. And then we move here and we're not seeing the immediate fruits of that obedience. And there would be nights that we would be laying in bed and in the middle of the night I just I could not sleep. I would slowly roll out of the bed not to wake Jared up and I would literally just lay on the floor and fall on my face and just sob and just quietly ask the Lord, which is like God, like, we need your help. We know we're here for a reason. We just need to solely trust you on what's gonna happen next. He was incredibly trying for our faith for sure. Yeah, I think for me as being like a new husband, that I lead our family into something that was More for personal gain and not for like kingdom gain. My inner critic was really like, you know, pounding on me. And then we just continued to to pray. They're like, there's God, there's there's there's a purpose here, and let's just make sure it's not us. We knew we had to drum up some interests, obviously, and you know, what the team would be named. One lady said Savannah Bananas. And I remember we passed that around the office, and people thought, that's the dumbest thing on earth, but like I don't know, maybe we should be the Savannah Bananas. We can't do any worse than we currently are, right? Like we can't sell any less tickets than we currently have or make any less money than we currently have or have any less fans. So like, why don't we just go all in on this thing? Of course we thought of all the puns and you know the Savannah Banana Nanas dance team and naming the mascot split and all these ridiculous things. And telling people to go bananas. What to go bananas. We announced that name on February 25th. People freaked out. They were like, that's the dumbest thing on earth. And then people were ⁓ that's the most amazing thing on earth. And you know, just all these people going back and forth. And we realized finally at that moment we had people's attention. At that night, I remember we all went out to dinner afterwards and ESPN was on, and we see that Savannah Bananas is is trending on Twitter and that it's on Sports Center and all this stuff. And I'm like, okay, like Are we actually doing this? Is is is this the point that we had just been hoping and trusting and praying for? ⁓ and I think that that was the night that the Lord really gave us that like, hey, like I've got you. I just need you to trust me. From thinking that you were completely out of money, from being completely out of money to now you're on a national tour, how do you process that? It's just a pinch me moment. ⁓ it's just like, okay, Lord, like you were faithful. We're called to work and do things and we're obviously in life with people, but realizing that the work thing is just in this little box that is temporary. And if that's the only thing, then man, we're really selling ourselves short of what maybe God has called us to do. We're in this thing to share the love of Jesus with people and to be a part of the Great Commission. We love what we do, we love the people that we do it with. And we love the people that we serve and the hundreds of thousands of people and all these banana fans. Growing up in the church, I guess I kind of had this mindset to do ministry work, you have to be a pastor or you have to be a missionary in a foreign country. But I think the Lord was teaching us in that time, it's just like, no, your your mission field is wherever you're called to, whether you work a corporate job or whether you're working in the third world country. Grayson Stadium, that is our mission field. Although the team is not a Christian team. ⁓ we can still bring that love of Christ to whomever we meet, whether it's the game day staff or whether it's full-time staff or whether it's just just a fan. Well, I wanted to interject here and tell you that we shot this interview in 2023. And yes, while the Savannah Bananas had been featured on ESPN, they'd only started their national tour. Now they're selling out football stadiums all over the country. Well, in this next brief segment, we followed Jared to the ballpark and asked him what Banana Ball is and why it's different. But you're gonna hear him dream a little bit as as to where he thinks banana ball could go. It's great stuff. Let's get back to it. So, what is bananabol? Banana ball to us really and I hope to everyone is the fastest and most entertaining version of baseball, right? You know, there's a traditional baseball game and then there's banana ball. And you know, most of the rules are the same, but there's these kind of quirky sets of rules that we threw into play to figure out how do we make it the most fun and entertaining game. You know, there's two hour time limit. If a fan catches a foul ball, it's an out, there's no bunting, no walks, ⁓ there's no mound visits, you know, every inning counts. So there's all these crazy things. That we were hoping to do to just jam the most exciting parts of baseball into a two-hour action-packed event. Why do people love it? I hope the reason people love it is because it's fast and it's fun and there's like, you know, it's it's not your not your granddad's baseball game, right? It's kind of this kind of edgy frill thing where, you know, it almost feels like it shouldn't spoil, like these things shouldn't be happening in a real baseball game, right? ⁓ and so, you know, for us it's like we've Taking all the best things and put them into a two-hour box. And so you know at nine o'clock, this thing's ending, and I can go home and I saw the whole show and I was pleased and I ate and I drank and I danced and I sang and all these amazing things. And also, wait, was there a guy on stilts? And did that guy just do a backflip and catch a fly ball for an owl? And it's like, we hope people leave the stadium every night and say, that was the most fun game I've ever been able to witness. You probably had a lot of critics. How do you respond to critics who say what you're doing is fringe or it's circus stuff or whatever? Yeah, early on, you know, people were like, ⁓ you guys are like anti-baseball. And at first we were like, maybe we are, maybe we're not. And then we realized like, no, you could be a fan of both. You know, we're not trying to take down traditional baseball. We're not trying to hate on anybody that enjoys a a traditional baseball game. We like going to baseball games, you know, like, but you could be both. And like, what if you were a fan of baseball? And what if you're also a fan of banana ball? And so we always tell people like we exist to make baseball fun. We don't exist to make fun of anyone who doesn't like it. And so some things aren't for people, and that's okay. It doesn't make them a bad person, doesn't make them, you know, someone we don't like, but we feel like there's a lot of cool things that might be happening here. And if you're a fan of baseball, great. If you're not a fan of baseball, that might be even better for you. In thinking about The economy and thinking about inflation. I looked up the average cost for a family of four to go to a major league baseball game is over two hundred bucks now. That's not the case with you guys and the fact that you've sold out as much as as many tickets as you have, you're are you trying to keep the price low? We realize that when people go to a traditional event, I mean baseball, sporting event, movie theater, wherever, ⁓ you know, traditionally you just get Nickelin dimed every single time and it's twenty five dollars a park and it's you know, six dollars for hot dog and, you know, nine dollars for a water or whatever else. And it's like, that just doesn't feel like something that people are excited to go home and say, man, I went to the game tonight and I got totally robbed. Like, you know, no one no one talks about their experience in a positive way when they've been nickel and dined. And that's again sporting events or an airline or, you know, anything you do, service industry and they tack on all these fees and we just felt like if we're gonna create the best possible experience, Let's just give people incredible value. And you know what? If some people take advantage of us, great, have at it. Go so be it. ⁓ but let's deliver incredible value to people and make them feel like they just got so much above and beyond of what they paid that it's worth it to come back over and over and over and over again. What's the next thing for the bananas? You guys have gone from one thing to the next, from from nothing to big time. What do you have on the horizon? Yeah, I think what's next for the Savannah Bananas is what we've talked about really since day one and that's build more fans, create more fans, create more fans, create more fans. We know at the end of this thing, the fan is the only thing we have. And so we have to wake up every single morning and think, what are we gonna do today that's gonna delight our fans in a way that brings them joy and happiness and makes baseball fun. And so the next thing for us is just f literally having to figure out every single day where's the next fan. Is that internationally? Is that in a major league stadium? Is that, you know, in Canada? Is that in the in Japan? Like, is that online? Is that here at Grayson Stadium? Is that with new merchandise? Like we're only thinking about what's it gonna take to create one more fan and we just do that over and over and over again. God doesn't always bless us the way we imagine. Sometimes he does. And sometimes he does exceedingly and abundantly more than we can even dream of. That's what happened with Jared and Kelsey. And banana ball continues to go bananas. Well, if you enjoyed this podcast, we ask that you share it with a friend, a family member, a coworker. Our goal is to reach the world with the gospel through sports. And subscribe, that's a small way that you can help us. You can watch this podcast on YouTube, and we have feature stories with athletes as well as video shorts that we think you'll enjoy. And we're also on social media, on Instagram, we're at CBN Sports underscore. And on Facebook, X and TikTok, TikTok, just search us at CBN Sports. We'll see you next week.