The Savannah Bananas are often labeled the “Harlem Globetrotters of baseball,” an apt comparison given the franchise prioritizes antics over competition.
With last week’s announcement by top banana Jesse Cole that he is dissolving the slightly less wacky version of the Bananas — the collegiate summer league team — to go all-in on the barnstorming “Banana Ball” squad, here’s hoping the Bananas don’t go the way of the Globetrotters and rarely play in their namesake town.
Unlike the Globetrotters, whose founder put New York City and Harlem in the team name purely for branding reasons, the Bananas are Savannah’s team. They started here, evolved here and became a national phenomenon here. They are the pulse of the Savannah summer.
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If future “world tours” don’t include several Savannah dates, the local populace should be disappointed. The college Bananas played 24 games each summer at Grayson Stadium — two to three a week over an 11-week span. This year, they played another 10 Banana Ball games at Grayson.
So 34 home games is the metric.
Future plans to be unveiled in October
Cole plans to roll out the 2023 plans in October. He told Savannah Morning News sportswriter Nathan Dominitz that five Major League Baseball teams have expressed interest in hosting Bananas’ games at their stadiums.
Cole has also had discussions with several minor league franchise officials about visiting their ballparks. He’s projecting 20-plus cities on the 2023 tour.
Where Savannah fits in the formula remains to be seen. Grayson Stadium has limited capacity, and Cole is not one to let supply and demand change his ticket-pricing strategy, even as Bananas seats go for a high markup on ticket-scalping websites such as StubHub. Cole can generate gameday revenue in other ways, and the Bananas are profitable social media influencers.
But if Cole is really going to build on the 2022 media attention — the ESPN docuseries, airing now, is a big darn deal — the Bananas are going to be road warriors.
Smart business move could hurt Savannah
Most Banana disciples anticipated the folding of the amateur team after seven years in the Coastal Plain League. Cole did more than drop hints earlier this summer when we said, “Banana Ball is our future.” The Bananas can’t do their schtick in the 24 college road games, and franchises in the league pay an annual membership fee.
By creating his own league, in essence, Cole controls the revenue end of the business. His expenses likely go up — he has to pay the barnstorming players where the college stars were not compensated for playing in games — but he’s proven a good businessman. So long as there’s demand for Banana Ball, he’ll make the finances work.
The Bananas’ high chance of success is reason for Savannahians to fear that we won’t get to enjoy them as often going forward. Cole is on to something with Banana Ball, and it’s not unrealistic to think the Bananas will achieve Globetrotter-like fame.
That could mean the Bananas peel away from Savannah. And that would change summers around here forever.
Contact Van Brimmer at avanbrimmer@savannahnow.com and follow him on Twitter @SavannahOpinion.
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