🎮 Savannah Bananas — Key Facts
| Owner & Creator | Jesse Cole & Emily Cole |
| Founded | 2016, Savannah, Georgia |
| Type | Private entertainment baseball team / touring show |
| Format | Banana Ball rules: fast-paced, trick plays, dancing, entertainment |
| Social Media | One of the world’s most viral sports brands — TikTok, YouTube, Instagram |
| Jesse Cole Known As | “The Yellow Tuxedo Guy” — always wears yellow tuxedo to games |
| Tour Model | World Tour (global touring) + Banana Ball World Series |
The Savannah Bananas are owned by Jesse Cole and his wife Emily Cole, who created the world’s most viral baseball entertainment brand from a struggling minor league franchise in Savannah, Georgia, in 2016. What started as a desperate attempt to save a failing baseball team has become a global phenomenon — a touring entertainment show that blends baseball skills, comedy, trick plays, and dance routines into a uniquely American spectacle.
Who Is the Owner of the Savannah Bananas?
The Savannah Bananas are privately owned by Jesse Cole and Emily Cole. Jesse Cole — always recognizable in his signature yellow tuxedo — is the founder, creative director, and public face of the Bananas. He and Emily purchased the rights to run a Collegiate Summer Baseball League team in Savannah in 2016 when the franchise was failing and barely attracting any fans. The couple rebranded the team with maximum entertainment value — fan-first gimmicks, trick plays, baseball behind-the-back passes, choreographed dances — and built one of the most viral sports brands in social media history.
From Struggling Team to Global Phenomenon
When the Coles took over in 2016, the team struggled to draw crowds to Grayson Stadium in Savannah. Jesse Cole implemented a radical fan-first philosophy: all-inclusive tickets, dance performances, grandma beauty contests, senior citizen break-dancing — anything to make attending a game an unforgettable experience. The philosophy worked. Videos of the Bananas’ trick plays and entertainment routines went massively viral on TikTok and YouTube, accumulating hundreds of millions of views. The team left the Coastal Plain League in 2022 to become a full-time touring entertainment show, inventing their own game format — Banana Ball — with modified rules designed for pace and spectacle.
Banana Ball and the World Tour
Banana Ball is the Savannah Bananas’ proprietary game format: batters can steal first base, fans can catch foul balls for outs, pitchers must pitch from a chair, and the team celebrates points with elaborate choreography. The Bananas now tour globally, playing sellout shows across the US and internationally. Their World Tour events consistently sell out major arenas and stadiums, with waitlists of hundreds of thousands of fans for tickets. The Savannah Bananas represent a fundamental reimagining of what a sports franchise can be — part performance art, part athletic exhibition, part comedy troupe, all built on an obsessive commitment to fan experience over competitive sport.
