Ever heard of the Savannah Bananas? If you haven’t, you might be in the minority.
What is essentially the baseball version of the Harlem Globetrotters, the Savannah Bananas began as the brainchild of owner Jesse Cole as a way to invigorate baseball in a slumping market.
The innovation and entertainment seen by the team and ownership group have led to millions of followers on social media, hundreds of thousands of fans on waitlists as the team barnstorms its way across the country, and recently led to a sold-out show at Minute Maid Park in Houston. 41,000 strong on hand to see what started as a college summer-league baseball team in 2016.
The Savannah Bananas have used one guiding principle to create millions of followers and millions in revenue. It’s an easy business for sports radio to emulate.
The mantra used by the Savannah Bananas is a simple one: “Fans First. Entertain Always.”
I know how hard it is to get lost in the minutiae of running a radio group, cluster, station, what have you. But when was the last time you thought ‘Man, that radio executive is putting listeners first,’ or ‘The group really puts a premium on entertainment rather than profit.’ While some groups are certainly doing those things, not enough of them are.
So, today, let’s take a look at some lessons we can learn from the “Fans First. Entertain Always” style the Savannah Bananas operate with.
Relevance
The Savannah Bananas have millions of followers across social media. How did they do it?
Social-specific content.
Everyone uses social media in some way or another. And it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. What works on X doesn’t work on Facebook. What works on Facebook won’t see results on TikTok. You have to tailor-make your content for your social media platforms.
In return, the people who follow you on that social media platform build a rapport with your brand and know what to expect. If you’re producing interesting, compelling, and social specific content, you’re going to see results.
This week at the BSM Summit, I guarantee you, someone will say the phrase “We’re not in the radio business. We’re in the content business.”
And while that’s true, what have we, as an industry, done to embrace content outside of radio? Post some articles on the station website? Have your afternoon host write a blog? Wow! Riveting!
Some of the format’s most popular brands have fewer YouTube subscribers than my college football podcast. Stations in metros with millions of people have a few hundred YouTube subscribers. Why? Because we haven’t embraced that medium nor have we produced YouTube-specific content.
The Bananas have stayed relevant by utilizing social media to remain at the top of their fans’ minds. We have to do the same.
Ratings
By utilizing social media to remain at the top of their fans minds, the baseball team sells hundreds of thousands of tickets each year. Thousands of tickets each night they play in Savannah, and thousands of tickets around the nation on their tour.
The Savannah Bananas outdrew MLB teams last year. With a brand they created — to the chagrin of locals — in 2016. They don’t have one hundred years of history. And yet, it is one of the hottest tickets in sports.
How? Simple: They put fans first.
Do you put your listeners first? You can make that argument, but do you actually, honestly, truly believe that you put your listeners first?
Radio executive after radio executive views their marketing partners, advertisers, and sponsors as their customers. And that’s true. They are. But your most important customers are your listeners. And rarely, if ever, do they become the priority. I don’t know the last time, if ever, I’ve heard a leader — whether it be of a company, cluster, what have you — say they prioritized listeners over advertisers.
Is it easier said than done? Probably. But prioritize your listeners. They’re your most important customers. Without them, you can’t sell advertising to your marketing partners. The Bananas don’t have their outfield walls plastered in ads. They don’t do sponsored elements during their games. They don’t inundate you with the Dale’s Dead Bug Bullseye of the Game or whatever hokey property you can put together.
They create a compelling, entertaining product, and get millions of eyeballs because of it.
The team could probably sell its TV package for a nice price. And in the past, games have aired on ESPN+ behind a paywall. But they stream their games, for free, on YouTube. Why? Because it’s accessible. Accessibility breeds enjoyment. Enjoyment breeds excitement. Excitement creates fandom. Fandom creates profit.
I’m a fan of the Chicago Cubs. You know why? Because when I was a kid, their games ended when I was getting home from school, and because they were on extremely basic cable with WGN.
Create accessibility. All it does is garner interest in your product. Interest in your product turns into ratings. Ratings turn into revenue.
Revenue
Finally, we come to the most important item for most: revenue.
We’re all in desperate search of whatever revenue we can get our hands on.
And the Savannah Bananas think about it backward. This one might be the toughest one for those in our industry to comprehend.
Advertising for most radio stations looks like a NASCAR. Brands placed wherever you can put them. We’ll take whatever money we can get, and we’ll find somewhere to slap your logo on the car — or in this case, station. Look at this car that ran in the Daytona 500 recently. 22 brands on it. If you squint hard enough, you can see the Oscar Mayer logo.
What message are you sending to your clients if they have to “squint”, with their ears, to hear their message on your station?
Create bigger real estate packages for your station. Bigger packages equal bigger dollars. That’s science. Is there a point of diminishing returns? Sure, but if you’ve taken care of your first two initiatives — relevance and ratings — asking for bigger dollars isn’t the end all, be all that you might have intimidated yourself into thinking it is.
The Bananas prioritize the big dollar, big-ticket items, and sponsorship opportunities. Their “World Tour” is sponsored by Zappos, an online shoe retailer. But they don’t beat you over the head with it by repetitively telling you about it, showing the logo, or putting it directly in your face at every opportunity.
You know why? Because people f—ing hate ads. You can convince yourself otherwise, but just because people enjoy watching Super Bowl commercials doesn’t mean they want to hear an 8-minute stopset on a Tuesday afternoon.
So, if fans hate ads, the Bananas don’t do ’em. Why? Because they put the fans first. Now, I realize we have to do ads. But do we have to do so many ads? Do we have to do commercials so cheaply? Can we create more engaging, entertaining spots? Remember: “Fans First. Entertain Always.”
While that might not be a popular sentiment, if you can rely on the first two R’s — relevance and ratings — you can rely on revenue to follow. I’m not saying drop down to two minutes of spots or anything like that, but if you have a compelling and entertaining content idea, you don’t have to make it look like a 2024 NASCAR. Make it look like a 2002 NASCAR, where one sponsor dominates the promotion or content. Again, I know, easier said than done.
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The Savannah Bananas aren’t in the baseball business. They’re in show business and the content business, just like we are.
Take some lessons away from the way owner Jesse Cole operates. Use the same mindset. If you take care of your talent and producers, your talent and producers will take care of your listeners. If your talent and producers take care of your listeners, your listeners will take care of your clients. When your listeners take care of your clients, you’ll see results.
But it starts with a mindset and a commitment to doing what’s best for your talent, your employees, and your brand. The other things will come. You just have to commit to it, first.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
