The (Improbable) Story of Savannah Bananas’ Rise to a $1B Empire

0:00:01 – You gotta create attention first.
0:00:02 If people don’t know who you are,
0:00:04 good luck trying to create something.
0:00:07 – You guys have a multi-million person wait list
0:00:08 for tickets.
0:00:10 On TikTok, you have 10 times more followers
0:00:11 than the New York Yankees.
0:00:13 – Ideas are more valuable than anything.
0:00:15 Whatever’s normal, do the exact opposite.
0:00:17 No one comes home and said, “Oh, did you hear this thing?
0:00:18 It’s so normal.”
0:00:20 You get excited about remarkable, unforgettable.
0:00:23 – You’re one of our Mount Rushmore type of guys
0:00:25 because you’re playing the game on extreme hard mode
0:00:26 and I respect you for it.
0:00:28 – It’s way harder than I thought.
0:00:29 – So we completely ran out of money.
0:00:30 We had nothing left.
0:00:31 And then Emily turned to me and said,
0:00:32 “We have to sell our house.”
0:00:33 So we sold our house.
0:00:34 – Did you have conversations of wanting to quit?
0:00:37 – I mean, it was brutal.
0:00:39 – I feel like I can rule the world.
0:00:42 I know I could be what I want to.
0:00:45 I put my all in it like my day’s off on the road.
0:00:46 Let’s travel.
0:00:47 – What’s up guys?
0:00:48 – Oh my God, it’s Jesse Cole.
0:00:51 – What’s up?
0:00:52 – How you guys doing?
0:00:54 – We almost wore the same thing today.
0:00:56 – You should’ve, you should’ve.
0:00:57 There’s a lot more going around these days.
0:00:58 I think I’m keeping them in business.
0:01:01 – When did you start the yellow suit, yellow hat?
0:01:02 What was the day?
0:01:03 What was the conversation?
0:01:04 – Before the bananas.
0:01:05 That’s the crazy thing.
0:01:06 People didn’t even realize that.
0:01:07 It was before the bananas.
0:01:08 That’s the wild thing.
0:01:09 Oh yeah, man.
0:01:11 We had a team and you talk about first million.
0:01:12 We had a team in Gastonia.
0:01:15 So I was wearing this before ’cause of P.T. Barn.
0:01:16 I’m inspired by him.
0:01:20 Not just to be the same regular host like everyone else.
0:01:22 – Do you know what you’re getting into at all with this?
0:01:26 – I know, I’ve listened to your show and I’m ready to rock.
0:01:27 I love the one with the two.
0:01:30 You had the owner of the jazz.
0:01:32 That was an interesting, that was more of a sit down.
0:01:33 – When I was hanging out with him,
0:01:35 I was telling him a bunch of Savannah banana anecdotes.
0:01:37 I was like, you gotta, you gotta do this.
0:01:38 You gotta do this.
0:01:39 You gotta get the grandmas on the court.
0:01:42 – He loves hearing all the other things he should do.
0:01:45 – Yeah, that’s probably what he liked, Sean.
0:01:46 He probably liked that.
0:01:48 – No, it was very well done and very well produced as well.
0:01:49 You guys did a great job with that.
0:01:50 – Well, thanks, man.
0:01:51 Well, we’re excited to have you here
0:01:55 because you’re one of our entrepreneurial
0:01:56 Mount Rushmore type of guys.
0:02:00 Because you took some, you know, it’s about the gap.
0:02:02 It’s about the gap of going from nothing to something.
0:02:05 And the way, how far you went with nothing
0:02:08 to something incredible is pretty remarkable.
0:02:10 Just to give people a sense.
0:02:12 I mean, I don’t know a soul in my life
0:02:16 who wanted to go watch exhibition or minor league baseball.
0:02:18 That was not even a thing.
0:02:22 And yet you guys have a multi-million person wait list
0:02:23 for tickets.
0:02:26 You guys have, I just looked this morning on TikTok,
0:02:28 you have 10 times more followers than the New York Yankees.
0:02:32 And so just accomplishing that kind of blows my mind.
0:02:35 And I want you to come on here and I want you to tell your story.
0:02:37 I want you to teach us kind of how you think.
0:02:40 Because I think what you, the way you think and how that’s been applied to
0:02:44 baseball could be applied to many other types of businesses.
0:02:47 I think that’s the real gift you’re going to kind of give the entrepreneurial world.
0:02:48 – Yeah, we’ll fire it up.
0:02:49 Let’s jam.
0:02:51 All right, so Sam, where should we start?
0:02:52 Start at the start?
0:02:52 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:02:55 Let’s spend, but we’ll keep it a little bit abbreviated
0:02:56 because you’ve done a lot of amazing podcasts.
0:02:57 We’ve talked about it.
0:02:59 But yeah, do set some, set the context a little bit.
0:03:02 Like, uh, 10, 15 years ago, where were you?
0:03:07 – Yeah, well, I started as a 23 year old general manager with a team in Gastonia, North Carolina.
0:03:12 And so it was college summer baseball, which is a low level of baseball.
0:03:14 So that’s, that’s where I started with this.
0:03:17 And yeah, there was, that team only had 200 fans coming to the games,
0:03:22 uh, $268 in the bank account. I couldn’t pay myself for literally three months.
0:03:27 It was December. I think I was able to take my first paycheck, which I was making $27,500.
0:03:30 So I wasn’t making a lot of money regardless, but that’s, uh, that’s where I started.
0:03:34 And so it was learning how to make college summer baseball exciting and entertaining.
0:03:38 And I did that for years and no one knew anything, but we were just experimenting and
0:03:43 trying new things. And that’s really kind of learned the, uh, the ideas of making baseball
0:03:44 more fun and adding new things to the show.
0:03:51 – Why even be there? Like, why weren’t you an intern at JP Morgan or, you know,
0:03:56 why is your first job a GM of a summer league baseball team? What was the plan?
0:03:59 – Never could have got a job at JP Morgan or any of those for the record.
0:04:04 Yeah. So no, I, I, I played ball. So my whole life was baseball. My dad owned a baseball facility.
0:04:08 I was very fortunate to get a huge scholarship to Wofford college division one school down South
0:04:12 Carolina. So my goal was to play professional baseball. So I was getting, you know, letters
0:04:16 from the Mets and the Padres and the pirates and the Braves. And I was like, this is going to happen.
0:04:20 And then I tore my shoulder just like that. So everyone’s like, oh, you’re going to go into coaching,
0:04:25 Jesse. Your dad was a coach. You just, that’s your mindset. And I coached for one summer in the Cape
0:04:32 Cod league. And I wanted to pull my hair out every day. It was the best players, like the highest level,
0:04:36 like these guys were all in the first round picks and I was in the dugout of the best seat. And I was
0:04:42 just bored out of my mind. I used to go to the Cape Cod league games and it was, uh, the hot dogs were
0:04:46 great. It was just baseball. It was just baseball, but it was, it was high. It was, it was all these
0:04:50 guys. If you look at the major league rosters, all-stars, a lot of them played, uh, in the Cape
0:04:54 Cod league, but I was bored. There’s a difference between playing and watching. And so it was the first
0:04:58 time I really, you know, as Walt Disney thinks, you know, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. I put myself
0:05:02 in the spectator’s shoes and I was like, I’m bored. And so it was then I realized that I don’t
0:05:06 want to coach anymore. And I said, well, what if I, you know, got in the front office and tried to make
0:05:10 the show and the entertainment and the experience better for fans. And that’s really where it started.
0:05:16 And that’s when I went to take this job as a 23 year old general manager of one of the worst teams in
0:05:16 the country.
0:05:20 Isn’t there a story of Disney going to, I don’t know if it was a park or an amusement park with
0:05:24 his daughter and he’s sitting on a bench and he’s kind of just like looking at this. He’s like, why
0:05:29 don’t like, I wish this was fun for me and her and not just her, for example. Uh, isn’t there some
0:05:32 famous story like that? And that’s where the origins of Disneyland came, came about a hundred percent.
0:05:36 And I’ve studied Walt religiously. So, uh, yes, it was a Griffith park. It was his two daughters.
0:05:41 Saturday was his day with his daughters and he always took them. He had, you know, daddy day with
0:05:44 the daughters. And so he took him to Griffith park and they’re on the carousel and he’s sitting
0:05:47 in there and he goes, I wish there was a place that adults and kids could have fun together.
0:05:51 And that’s where the literal mindset said, well, what if we created a place like that?
0:05:56 And so I, in a weird way was sitting in the dugout, the best seat in the house with some of the best
0:06:01 players thinking I’m bored on my mind. Why can’t this be fun for more people? And so that’s where
0:06:06 it kind of started the journey as a 23 year old general manager with no money in the bank account,
0:06:10 not getting paid on how do you make this a more fun. And that’s really where I fell in love with
0:06:15 Walt Disney and PT Barnum and started studying WWE and Cirque du Soleil, Saturday Night Live.
0:06:19 I became obsessed with learning about entertainment, not necessarily learning about
0:06:21 the baseball business. I want to learn about the entertainment business.
0:06:25 Can you tell us the transition from employee to
0:06:29 owner and then, uh, well, yeah, first about that. It’s like, what was that era?
0:06:33 I was a general manager for two or three years. Then I became the managing partner,
0:06:39 which the owner gave me like, I think like a 5%, uh, just like equity stake, um, for being a part of it.
0:06:46 And then it was 2014. So that was geez, six, seven, eight years later that I bought it from him.
0:06:51 So the team was worth very little, made it worth a lot more. So went into owner financing debt,
0:06:58 uh, with him and, and bought it for him in 2014. And, and he gave me every opportunity. I was so
0:07:02 fortunate that the owner, Ken Silver, just let this kid kind of run with the team and try things and
0:07:07 experiment. But we ended up having success after that first year. And so made the team a lot more valuable,
0:07:12 uh, which is a good win for all of us. And it was still like a real, like a, like a,
0:07:14 like a normal baseball team, like for the first two years, right?
0:07:20 Oh, no. Well, it was normal. I mean, I, I mean, we had grandma beauty pageants our first year.
0:07:25 I mean, we had, I started, we came up with, um, the garbage can nachos, like four orders of nachos,
0:07:30 three cheeseburgers, three hot dogs, nacho cheese, jalapenos, donuts. We called it heart-stoppingly
0:07:34 delicious. I tried to get a cardiologist to sponsor it, but no one was interested. Uh,
0:07:39 so like we started doing crazy. We did a dig to China night where we literally had hundreds of
0:07:43 people go on the field and dig, uh, in, in the infield dirt to get a trip to China. But when the
0:07:48 woman won, she realized it was just a one-way flight to China, no flight back and no accommodations.
0:07:55 So, so, so we had a lot of fun. I mean, we fired our mascot, uh, for a bear growth hormone because
0:08:00 HGH was big. So we did BGH. We offered George Bush because he just finished his term as president and
0:08:06 internship with us with a $1,000 stipend. Um, we, we did like, we were going to get him a host family.
0:08:10 We were going to figure it out. Uh, he turned it down, but like, we, we, we just came up with all
0:08:14 crazy ideas. We were just trying to get attention. I was like, I was using the PT Barnum, you know,
0:08:19 book of how do you create attention? And so we were trying everything and yeah, the players,
0:08:23 we got the players to dance that first year. They weren’t great dancers. And every player turned me
0:08:28 down except for four, but four dancers did the jump on it dance and they became the most popular players.
0:08:33 So we, we were dabbling and experimenting in no man’s land where literally no one knew who we were
0:08:39 outside of Charlotte. You’re not even the Savannah bananas yet. You’re still the Gastonia. Yeah.
0:08:42 Yeah. Yeah. The, the ones nobody heard about that. I think that’s really important to the sort
0:08:47 of like the toiling and obscurity trying things iterating. Now, let me ask you those ideas
0:08:50 that you just said, every one of those ideas, I’m like, oh my God, what a genius idea. That’s
0:08:54 fantastic. And I can totally, it makes me laugh. I can totally see them. I can see the press release.
0:09:00 I can see the news clip. I can see the TikTok clip. Now to have 10 great ideas. You probably had
0:09:07 what a thousand, 10,000 bad ideas, something like that. Tell me about your practice of generating ideas.
0:09:10 And what was your kind of system of creativity?
0:09:13 Well, when we first started, uh, you know, I learned from, uh, so Bill Veck was the famous
0:09:17 owner of the St. Louis Browns, the white socks that he was brilliant in what they did. I mean,
0:09:23 obviously so many things, grandstand managers night. He literally let his fans in a major league game
0:09:27 dictate whether they were going to bunt, steal or hit and run. He put his coach in the grandstand.
0:09:31 You know, it was unbelievable. Um, obviously he came up with Eddie Guidel, the midget hitter,
0:09:35 and he did so many things. He gave away live lobsters to fans during games. I mean, he was brilliant.
0:09:40 His book, Vecca’s in Rec made a huge impact on me, but I went to his, uh, his son’s conference,
0:09:44 Mike Veck, another unbelievable pioneer, the St. Paul Saints, Charleston Riverdogs had a lot of minor
0:09:50 league teams. I went to his conference when I was 23 and he said, my dad always said, Bill, he said,
0:09:55 if there’s a fire, you got to get the most important thing in the house. And it’s our idea box.
0:10:01 And so the idea box, he said, ideas are more valuable than anything. And so he actually gave
0:10:06 us a wooden box. I still have it today. And we started coming up with ideas and that as a 23 year
0:10:10 old started coming with lots. I mean, they were all a lot of them ridiculous. Some work, some didn’t
0:10:15 salute to underwear night failed flatulence fun night failed. Uh, you know, I mean, the hairiest man in
0:10:22 Gaston County, that was gross. So, I mean, we did a lot of things that just didn’t work, but I started
0:10:26 learning about ideas and you know, the big premise that I kind of came up with is, is whatever’s
0:10:32 normal, do the exact opposite. No one gets excited about normal. No one comes home and said, oh,
0:10:36 did you hear this thing? They just, it’s so normal. Like you get excited about remarkable, unforgettable.
0:10:40 And so it was literally eight years of doing that. And when people, I think about the title
0:10:45 of the show, my first million, we never made a million dollars in Gastonia. You know, we started,
0:10:49 it was a hundred thousand dollars in total revenue the year I took over the team. Uh,
0:10:55 it was, the expenses were 250. So we were doubling pretty consistently and getting like 200, then 300,
0:11:00 then 400, then 500, then 600, then 700, then 800. But we never got to a million. I ran that for eight
0:11:04 years. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let’s recap. That’s pretty remarkable. This is remarkable.
0:11:08 So it took you eight years to get to a million in revenue. No, we didn’t even get to a million in
0:11:14 revenue. Okay. So we never got to a million. It wasn’t until Savannah that we actually reached a
0:11:17 million dollars in one year. And how old were you on the eighth year? You were like, what,
0:11:23 like 32? So I was 23. Yeah. So yeah. You know, eight. So when we finally got, so we had Gastonia
0:11:29 and then Savannah in 2015. So we had both teams at once. So I went to Savannah in 2015. 2016 was the
0:11:34 first year we reached a million dollars in revenue. How many times did like kind of smart,
0:11:38 well-intentioned friends and family sit you down and be like, Jesse, what are you doing? What are you
0:11:42 doing out here? What’s going on? I was having the time of my life. Do you need some help? Do you need
0:11:46 a job at the car wash? Like what are you doing out there? Oh, everyone I’ve come across with,
0:11:51 especially family knows I need help in many, many different ways, but they were, no, they saw,
0:11:56 I was having fun. Guys, think about this. We took over a team that had most nights, 50 to a hundred
0:12:00 fans. And my first year we had nights where you’re getting over a thousand fans or 1,500 fans or 2,000
0:12:05 fans. By our second year, we were selling out games. Like again, it was only 2,000, 3,000 seat
0:12:09 stadium, but it was unbelievable. I was having the time of my life. Were you making a profit?
0:12:14 Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, we got, you know, by probably 800,
0:12:19 850,000 in revenue, probably costing 600. So like expenses. So it was, you know,
0:12:23 it was a healthy profit. You know, it was for college summer baseball. We were killing it.
0:12:27 Are you kidding me? It was like, heck yeah, look at what we’re doing. And you know, in the late twenties
0:12:33 in Gastonia, a little tiny, I was, I was happy, but every day I got to create new things. That’s
0:12:37 what people don’t realize. I got to create things. I get to have fun. And I got to see every day. I got
0:12:42 to test those ideas in real time. Will people show up or will they not? Will they like this
0:12:46 promotion or will they not? Will it sell tickets or not? Will they buy this birch or not? I get to
0:12:51 test every day. And Henry Ford at Greenfold Village, I’ll never forget I visited. He said,
0:12:57 Henry believed in learning by doing. And I’m obsessed. I want to be the fastest learning
0:13:01 sports organization in the world. And so the more we do, the more we learn. And so that started,
0:13:03 you know, many years in Gastonia, before we went to Savannah.
0:13:09 All right. You’re hearing how Jesse turned one weird idea into a million dollar business,
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0:13:35 right now. Now let’s get back to the show. You mentioned P.T. Barnum and Disney and how
0:13:42 you obsessively studied them. What were some of the early stories that inspired you or things that
0:13:48 they did that maybe me who hasn’t read about P.T. Barnum wouldn’t know about, but that blew your mind?
0:13:53 Well, you know, with P.T. Barnum, it was so much about how do you create attention? You know,
0:13:59 showmanship, he says, without promotion, something terrible happens, nothing. And so when you look at
0:14:08 his books, I mean, he was just, I mean, he hired terrible performing musicians, violinists and
0:14:13 musicians that were so bad that he put them outside of his museum. And so he’d say, the only way you can
0:14:19 get away from is you have to come inside the museum. Like he would just come up with ideas and he would
0:14:26 bring people together. He was a master promoter. He was also a tremendous writer and he was always
0:14:31 writing. He was always speaking. So I kind of took his spot as like, he was always a front person.
0:14:36 You know, you got to have someone that truly believes in what you do. And P.T. Barnum believed
0:14:40 in his museum. He said, hey, some of it’s true, some of it’s not, but you’re going to come in and
0:14:44 you’re going to be entertained. And he believed in that. And he went on top of every mountain talk to
0:14:49 yell that. So I kind of took that from him. It’s like, all right, I was dressed like everyone else.
0:14:53 I’m like, no, I’m going to get a full tuxedo. By the way, the first one was black and it had tails
0:14:57 and it was 95 degrees in North Carolina, summer night. I almost melted. So I said, we’re not doing
0:15:02 that. So I found a yellow one that was brighter and fit the color of the Grizzlies, which was also
0:15:07 kind of yellow. That’s how that started. But it was about showmanship. P.T. Barnum was a showmanship.
0:15:11 How do you create attention with all your acts? And then Bill Veck, man, he was the most fans,
0:15:16 first owner ever. He would sit with the fans in the stands. He was an owner. He would literally set up
0:15:21 and he would talk to all the fans every single night. He would go vecking as I made up the term.
0:15:24 But after every game, he would go to the bars with the fans just to connect with them.
0:15:28 You know, when he stuck over the St. Louis Browns, they say, what time the game starts?
0:15:33 He goes, what time do you want it to start? Like that was his mindset was always what would be best
0:15:37 for fans. And he did it. He did constant giveaways. He was first going to put names on the back of
0:15:41 jerseys. He had the exploding scoreboard with fireworks. I mean, he was just so far ahead of his time.
0:15:45 And every other owner hated him because he was doing so much more for fans than they all were.
0:15:50 And so you combine that with then Walt Disney’s vision. And it’s kind of fun to do the impossible
0:15:54 and put yourself in the guest shoes. Those three kind of just set me on a tone of like,
0:15:57 let’s try to combine these worlds and create something pretty special in baseball.
0:16:03 So all of that is like you dressing the way you dress and doing the thing you do now. It’s inspiring
0:16:08 because the company is, I don’t know if it’s real, but the headlines is that it’s worth a billion dollars
0:16:13 and you’re incredibly successful and you’re well-loved. But for the first handful of years,
0:16:17 did you, did you feel like, I mean, did you feel embarrassed? Were you like,
0:16:20 I don’t know if this is going to pay off. I don’t know if it’s going to worth it. I’m risking my
0:16:25 reputation. I look silly right now. Did that fear come into play? Because when I hear what you’re
0:16:29 doing, I’m like, that makes sense. I should do that. And also I’d be embarrassed.
0:16:35 A thousand percent. We’ve been criticized every step of the way. I’ve been embarrassed many steps of the
0:16:39 way. You know, our first eight years and nine years in Gastonia, we did everything. It was myself. It was
0:16:44 my wife. We had one or two other team members. We put out show tonight signs out around town just to
0:16:48 try to convince people, hey, they have a game. Please go. We did the trash before the game. We did the
0:16:54 hiring. We did the concessions. We did operations, putting signs up. We did everything. And it was exhausting.
0:16:57 And people criticized. It’s like you’re a college summer team. You know, on a Wednesday night,
0:17:03 there might be 500 people there. And then when we went to Savannah, that’s when the criticism and
0:17:10 the skepticism reached an all-time high. Why then? Well, you had professional baseball for 90 years.
0:17:15 So you had professional baseball for 90 years. And then all of a sudden, there’s a college summer
0:17:20 baseball team coming in. So they just had the New York Mets affiliate the year before us. And now they
0:17:23 wanted a brand new stadium. The city said, no, they weren’t going to invest because
0:17:28 no one was coming to the games. So all the professional Savannah teams were the lowest
0:17:31 in the league in attendance. I mean, literally some nights having 300 people in the ballpark
0:17:36 for professional baseball. So we came in and we had, we’re going to make baseball fun. We’re going
0:17:39 to do this. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. They’re like, sure you are. We’ve heard
0:17:46 that before, kid. And yeah, we sold two tickets in our first three months. And I mean, we were hung up
0:17:52 on every day. I mean, my wife tells, she would walk in. So we had a free launch event where we’re
0:17:57 literally having free food, free drinks, everything. She’d walk into little shops, stores, restaurants,
0:18:03 and be told, get out. Like literally told, we weren’t selling. We were offering free. Hey,
0:18:07 we just want you to come. We’re the new team. We’re here in town. We want to meet the community.
0:18:10 I mean, it was brutal.
0:18:12 But did you have conversations of wanting to quit?
0:18:17 You couldn’t because we were now seven figures in debt. You know, we had to, we had to buy,
0:18:21 we had to buy the team, which was, we bought it through the Coastal Plain League because it was
0:18:25 an expansion team. And then we also had to put money in the team. We had to do the startup. We hired
0:18:31 people. We had nothing. So we were in debt and we had all these, these young people right out of college,
0:18:36 a 24 year old team president as well, that we were responsible for. And so there were no options of
0:18:41 quitting. It was just, how do we convince these people to believe in us? And what I realized is the
0:18:45 only way to do that is we had to show them. As Steve Jobs says, no one knows what they want until you
0:18:50 show it to them. We were talking, talking, talking. That’s not good marketing. Marketing is creating
0:18:52 experience and showing people. So we had to get to that point.
0:18:57 You seem like an incredibly optimistic guy. And I love that. I love your energy. And obviously
0:19:02 at this point, there’s a lot to be optimistic about, but the era that we’re talking about,
0:19:07 things were not going well. You sell two tickets in three months, you’re seven figures in debt. And
0:19:16 I’m curious, like nobody’s optimistic 100% of the times, um, there are moments of either doubt or
0:19:22 pain or struggle. And like, so when I say rock bottom and then they’re making the movie about you,
0:19:26 what’s the movie scene where the director’s like, okay, this is the rock bottom scene. It’s maybe it’s
0:19:30 you and your wife or it’s, you know, you at the ATM machine looking at the balance. Like, you know,
0:19:37 what’s rock bottom when I say that? Well, so we got the phone calls, 4:45 PM, January 15th, 2016.
0:19:43 And that was when we were out of money. So we completely ran out of money. Uh, we couldn’t
0:19:50 cover payroll, we had nothing left. And so at that point, um, I moved, I think it was like $3,000
0:19:56 over that I had in my own account to cover that, the rest of the payroll. And then we emptied out
0:20:01 our savings account, put that in to cover us for another couple of weeks. And then Emily turned to
0:20:05 me and said, we have to sell our house. So we sold our house. Now people don’t know in the timing of this
0:20:12 business. Me and Emily had just got married 10, 10, 2015. We got the keys for Savannah that same week.
0:20:18 So within three, four months, three months, we’re completely out of money. Our first year of marriage,
0:20:24 we have nothing left and we have to sell our house. We found an old garage that I would like to say was
0:20:28 turned into a studio, but it really wasn’t. It was the grossest thing I’ve ever imagined living in.
0:20:33 It was the only thing we could afford. She got an air bed, a twin air bed. Um, we realized that we could
0:20:37 only grocery shop with just $30 a week and we couldn’t use credit cards anymore because we’re
0:20:43 already maxed out. So we would go in with a $20 bill and a $10 bill into Walmart for 42 meals. Um,
0:20:48 that was pretty rough. That was a tough time. We didn’t sleep. Emily’s the one.
0:20:56 She kept me. I don’t know how she, cause I can get into, you know, I think all I entrepreneurs,
0:21:00 you know, we’re, we’re, we’re high performers and we think differently, but also you can spiral a little
0:21:06 bit. And I started, I’m optimistic, but I was like, Em, what are we going to do? We, this is bad.
0:21:10 Everybody’s saying no to us. Um, but she was like, Jesse, we did this. We got to get to that first
0:21:14 game, get to the first game, get to the first game. So she lifted me up and we knew we just had to get
0:21:19 to that next, that a bat. But the first thing was really name the team. Cause at that point we didn’t
0:21:24 have named the team. So we had to get people to understand who we were. And so that was the big thing
0:21:31 too. And that’s when things changed positively and negatively, because when we did a name, the team
0:21:36 contest, everyone said, be the spirits, be the ports, be the anchors, you know, be the Braves.
0:21:40 I was like, there’s a team in Georgia called the Braves. We’re not going to be the Braves guys like it,
0:21:44 but there was one, one person that suggested bananas. And I remember we looked at each other and said,
0:21:50 yeah, go bananas. And we thought of the banana, Nana’s senior citizen dance team and the man,
0:21:53 banana’s male cheerleading team and a banana baby that we lift up before the game and a banana band
0:21:57 and can’t stop the peeling. We just thought about all those guys. We were like, we have to go. It is
0:22:05 perfect. And then we announced it and we got crucified, man. We were ripped apart, uh, locally.
0:22:09 I mean, it was, it was so bad guys. I’ll never forget the St. Patrick’s Day parade two weeks
0:22:14 after we announced and we’re wearing green banana shirts and we’re getting booed walking through town.
0:22:18 Literally people are booing. Were they like baseball purists or did they think that you were insulting
0:22:23 the town or what? Yes. Embarrassment to the city. We were insulting the town. How dare you name the
0:22:27 team after the silly bananas team? I mean, it was, but nationally we were like sports center,
0:22:30 like logo of the year. And like, it was like, naturally they’re like, yes. Cause you know,
0:22:33 they didn’t take the pride in Savannah. They’re like, this is fun. This is gimmicky. This is cool.
0:22:40 Locally it was bad, but at least people knew who we are. And I believe attention beats marketing
0:22:44 1000% of the time. You got to create attention first. If people don’t know who you are,
0:22:49 good luck trying to create something. And so they at least knew who we are. And then when we’re like,
0:22:53 oh yeah, every single tickets, all inclusive, they’re like, what? I go, yeah, every ticket,
0:22:57 all your burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, soda, water, popcorn, dessert all night long,
0:23:03 no ticket fees, no convenient fees, $15. People were like, what? And then they were like,
0:23:07 and then they started kind of paying attention that we’re going to try to make everything fans first.
0:23:10 Here’s what our players are going to do. We have a banana band. Here’s our senior citizen
0:23:13 dance team, the banana nanas. And they were like, all right, this is a little different.
0:23:18 And I think people were expecting us to fail. So we sold out opening night. They all came out and
0:23:21 they wanted to see it. And then people had to wait three hours for food because we didn’t know we were
0:23:26 going to go through 10,000 pieces of meat in an hour. We had no idea how to do that for the record.
0:23:30 But they watched the show. They watched the fun. They watched the banana baby and the band and the
0:23:35 players dance. And that’s when they started telling everybody. And that’s really when it changed
0:23:41 after that first night. I’ve watched like maybe 10 or 20 interviews of you now. And we’ve talked
0:23:46 about you a bunch of the podcasts. And I’ve noticed that you do a few things consistently. And one of
0:23:50 them you’ve done here already a bunch of times, you’ve already named Henry Ford, Bill Vett, Walt Disney,
0:23:56 you talk about Steve Jobs all the time, you name a PT Barnum, you name drop all the time. And am I
0:24:02 taking I guess I’m reading into that where do you go out and try to find inspiration? And then do you
0:24:06 find like a couple lines in books? And you’re like, that’s it. That’s what we have to do.
0:24:11 Or because I’ve learned, yeah, you I don’t think you’ve ever explicitly talked about your creative
0:24:14 process. Other than I think you said that you make a list of 10 new ideas every single day.
0:24:19 And then I’ve also noticed that you have these like frameworks where you say, like, Walt Disney said
0:24:23 this. And it’s as if you like read this biography, you saw that one line, you’re like, I live my life
0:24:26 according to that now. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because that’s kind of fascinating.
0:24:31 Yeah. Well, Walt Disney said curiosity keeps leading us down new paths, and we will keep
0:24:37 trying things and experimenting. And it’s it’s it’s my curiosity. So yeah, I’ll go very deep on
0:24:41 subjects. You know, I don’t think there’s a track. Yes, I do 10 ideas a day. Yes, I journal every day.
0:24:47 But it’s the the reading I get fascinated by. So when I started learning about Walt Disney,
0:24:50 I read one book, then it guides me to another book, then it guides me to another book, then it guides me
0:24:54 to like, I’m looking across right now, I have an entire bookshelf of all every book on Walt Disney
0:24:59 and Disney World, like it’s, I don’t know, 100 books, maybe. And then I have a whole section on PT Barnum,
0:25:03 then I have an entire shelf on Amazon, then I have an entire shelf on Steve Jobs, then I have shelves on
0:25:09 like ESPN, I have every book on Taylor Swift, she’s fascinating what she’s doing. Marvel, you know,
0:25:15 a Grateful Dead, you know, all these different worlds, because there’s, there’s a blueprint on
0:25:19 how to create something truly special, a world of entertainment that’s different than anyone else.
0:25:24 But in sports, you know, I would say, you know, obviously, WWE, UFC, F1, they’re thinking differently.
0:25:31 But in most traditional sports, it’s the same thing, you’re competing to win. And we’re, our game is
0:25:36 compete to create fans. And how do we entertain? And so I want to learn from the greatest entertainers
0:25:41 in the world. So my framework is I’ll just go very, very, very deep. And then what I do is I earmark
0:25:47 every single page. And I know exactly where when I earmark a page what I’m looking for. I’ve done book
0:25:52 reports. I’ve done numerous book reports, like built to last. Tell me about a book report. Like what’s that?
0:25:57 Book report. Yeah, so we did this as a team. So for many years in the beginning, we actually paid our
0:26:01 people to read. So we pay them to do book reports. So we’re obsessed with learning as part of our
0:26:06 organization. So we did that for many years. Now we do kind of team books that we read as a group.
0:26:12 But yeah, a book report, I’ll go through and just kind of the biggest takeaways, the biggest things
0:26:18 that lead to fans first, ideas, parallels. David Novak, the former CEO of Yum Brands, he had a very
0:26:21 good compliment to me. I didn’t know what it meant at all when he said it at first. But he’s like,
0:26:25 you’re one of the greatest parallel thinkers I’ve ever seen. I go, thank you, David. What does that mean?
0:26:31 And he goes, well, he goes literally what you can see something and then you can make it your own in
0:26:36 a parallel path. And so like when I see something from Grateful Dead about what they did as far as,
0:26:39 you know, they brought, they brought the sound in house. They tried to bring the tickets in house.
0:26:43 They tried to, they let all their fans record all of that. Then Dave Matthews followed suit.
0:26:48 I can see that and then follow it our way. So that’s, you know, again, no real method. It’s just,
0:26:52 I want to look at examples of the best in the world. So like Jimmy Donaldson,
0:26:56 you know, he was with us, Mr. Beast. And so like, I’ve read everything on him, but we spent a lot of
0:27:00 time talking together because he’s the best in the world at YouTube. So I try to ask all those
0:27:04 questions. I think that’s just, you follow your curiosity. What’d you steal from Jimmy?
0:27:11 Well, the big, the biggest thing I was fascinated with him was the YouTube growth on how he looks
0:27:17 outside of the country. 70% of his views come from outside the US. And so you better believe that we
0:27:21 immediately were hiring, you know, Spanish speaking broadcasters. We’re going to hire Japanese
0:27:25 speaking broadcasters. We’re going to start having our games and social go all over the world as we
0:27:29 continue to grow there. So that was the one thing it was like, all right, what in YouTube can we do
0:27:33 right now to grow an audience and create fans? And he shared what he’s doing with his audience and
0:27:39 uh, dubbing. And that was fascinating. We did a episode with Jimmy and we, uh, he talked about
0:27:42 the same sort of 10 ideas a day thing. So he was like, you know, I started this when I was
0:27:47 11 or 12 years old. And he said, kind of your same story. There’s a great quote. He goes,
0:27:51 at 12 years old, nobody watched 13 years old. Nobody watched 14 years old. Nobody watched 15
0:27:55 years old. Nobody watched 16 years old. Is anybody ever going to watch? Nope. 17 years
0:27:59 old. Nobody’s still watching. And he’s like, finally, when I was 19, I started to get some
0:28:04 viewers and even then it was small. Right. Um, so he had this kind of six years of toiling and obscurity
0:28:09 seven years where it just wasn’t working, but he was getting better. And he talked about how he used
0:28:13 to do the kind of 10, 20 ideas. He’s like the most important thing in a YouTube video is the idea,
0:28:17 the premise of the video. So I came up with 10 to 20 ideas a day. He’s like,
0:28:21 I would flip open a dictionary at the source. So we had him do it live on the podcast. We put
0:28:26 a random word generator and he came up with ideas live on the thing. And you could tell he had built
0:28:31 that muscle. So I’m curious, like you say this thing about the 10 ideas a day. Is that like,
0:28:35 you used to do that early on? Are you still doing that? Is there a sticky note on your desk right now
0:28:38 with like 10 ideas you wrote this morning? I did two groups of ideas. No, I have,
0:28:45 uh, please get it. So, so here is, here’s the idea book. So I have one every single year.
0:28:50 So, uh, what’s that say on the cover? Well, it just says 2025 ideas, banana ball. So I just have,
0:28:56 I have these books all the time. And so, yeah, today I was obsessed. So I’m working on our, our two,
0:29:00 two of our newer teams. So I’m working on, uh, the Annapolis clowns, which we brought back,
0:29:04 um, one of the most famous Negro league teams. And so, yeah, it’s all the clowns characters,
0:29:10 dynamic contortionist, bat boy, uh, the juggling hawkers, juggling ball boy, an umpire that’s a
0:29:14 mime, trampoline coaches, strong men, a balloon artist, ringmaster slash Barker, human cannibal,
0:29:19 a character artist. So like just, and it starts listing. So I start thinking about ideas on how
0:29:23 we want to build. So I want to zoom in. You do this first thing or you take meetings first or what,
0:29:26 what’s your kind of process? Are you like, do you have a routine you use?
0:29:31 Sure. Hal Elrod, um, helped me tremendously. So his book miracle morning, uh, it was a game
0:29:36 changer for me in 2015. I read that, you know, I realized that most people, they, they don’t start
0:29:41 their day on purpose. They start their day with other people’s news, social media, other things going on.
0:29:45 And so, uh, when the morning, when the day became a huge thing. So 2015, I actually ran into him as
0:29:50 speaking appearance. I showed him my first notebook where in 2015, where I started writing and journaling.
0:29:54 And so, yeah, I have to win the morning. I have three kids, uh, you know, under seven years old.
0:29:58 So I got up very early and I start, I read cause your input affects your output. So I want to read
0:30:03 something. So I’m re re reading Amazon unbound right now. It’s just a story of how Bezos was
0:30:07 continued to grow them. And then literally I start writing journal. Then one of my ideas,
0:30:12 often I have an idea bucket the day before. So I can already start thinking about it a little bit
0:30:14 before I go to sleep. And then I start that idea bucket the next day.
0:30:19 Dude, you’re an animal. You’re an animal. Yeah, I love it though. It doesn’t feel like it’s,
0:30:23 it’s, it’s never felt like work. There’s certain things that if you really love, like ideas,
0:30:27 if I’ve come up with good ideas or ideas that are exciting to me, like I’m fired up the rest of the
0:30:32 day, I have great energy. And so it’s like, you’ve got to create before you consume. Often we consume
0:30:35 and we read all these things and I’m getting criticized. We get all these different things,
0:30:40 but it’s like, if I can create first and that’s, I mean, we just today, literally as we record this,
0:30:44 we just launched our first ever fans first ticket marketplace. So secondary market right now,
0:30:48 we’re getting killed. People are spending four or five, six, $700,000 for tickets.
0:30:52 And often they’re getting scammed. We built our own one face value, no markups,
0:30:56 no fees. We just announced that 30 minutes ago. Like that fires me up because I’m going to learn.
0:31:00 We’re going to get it out there. We’re going to start experimenting. Like you get to do new things.
0:31:04 That’s what Walt Disney, you get to try new things constantly. And I love that.
0:31:10 I feel like the, now the sort of you’ve hit escape velocity and people now recognize,
0:31:15 oh wait, this is something special. And you have a lot of momentum going. And I’m sure whether it’s
0:31:20 speaking fees or like speaking gigs or just meeting interesting people throughout doing what you’re
0:31:24 doing, you’ve now gotten into some pretty interesting rooms. Like you’ve met, you know,
0:31:27 you’ve mentioned reading about Jeff Bezos. You’ll meet Jeff Bezos if you haven’t already.
0:31:32 These things will happen because I think everybody can take inspiration from a brand builder and a fan
0:31:37 first customer first mindset. That’s like not just words, but actually put into action and all these
0:31:43 really interesting ways. Who have you met in this that, that kind of was like a wow moment for you or,
0:31:46 or, and I’m curious, what do they want to learn from you? What do they pull from you? Because I think,
0:31:51 you know, it doesn’t matter how sort of successful you are in one industry. I think there’s a lot they can
0:31:55 learn from you. Well, I appreciate that. But you know, whenever I get a call with one of these people,
0:31:59 I’m picking their brain like crazy and asking questions, but yeah. Just a question, tug of war.
0:32:05 Yeah, it usually is. You know, it’s, it’s funny, the, the FaceTimes and the videos and the calls that I
0:32:10 get now. And, but you know, one that stood out for me was Bob Iger a couple months ago. And, you know,
0:32:17 I have so much respect for what he did. And to continue to make creative, the, the heartbeat of
0:32:21 Disney, you know, I think it loses its, sometimes it ebbs and flows with the creative. And after that,
0:32:25 Walt was gone for 20, 30 years, they were figuring out, then Michael Eisner and Frank Wells came in and
0:32:30 went crazy. And then Iger kept it going to a whole nother level. And now again, trying to re, uh, bring
0:32:34 back that, that was a 30 minute conversation. I walked out, fired up. So, you know, I mean, there’s,
0:32:40 it’s a wide array, you know, from, you know, the heads of WWE and some WWE wrestlers to actors, to
0:32:45 actresses, to a lot of musicians. Now I’m hearing from a lot of musicians, um, you know, big time football
0:32:50 players, uh, and you know, athletes, but you know, I think my biggest thing is I always just want to
0:32:55 host them, come out to our show. You know, you, you learn by seeing, watch how we literally start
0:32:59 entertaining seven hours before the game. Watch how we stay two hours after the game and continue
0:33:03 entertaining. Like that’s what Taylor Swift, she’s like, I’m going to do three hour and 45 minute
0:33:08 set, which is crazy. Cause I want to over deliver. And so we look to over deliver with everything.
0:33:13 And so, you know, I, I enjoy hosting people more at our shows and getting to meet them and share
0:33:16 with them, the behind the scenes. That’s where I get a lot of joy.
0:33:20 When I hear you talk, I think I would never want to compete against this person.
0:33:23 Uh, and we’ve, and we’ve had a bunch of people like that. I think Jimmy was one of them where
0:33:28 you’re like, Oh, this guy is just like, um, he’s gonna, he’s gonna die or win. I mean, there’s,
0:33:32 there’s the, you know, you’re going against a crazy person. You don’t seem motivated by money.
0:33:37 You don’t seem particularly competitive with the outside world. You must have a chip on your
0:33:41 shoulder and what caused it and what’s, and what’s kind of forcing you to keep on moving forward.
0:33:46 Yeah. Name that chip certainly have a chip on a shoulder. And I think, um, but that’s not what
0:33:50 I’m chasing. I mean, yeah, a chip on my shoulder, you know, I was an only child. Um, you know, I, uh,
0:33:55 I always wanted to make my dad proud. That was kind of a big thing for me. I want to make my dad proud.
0:34:00 He worked really hard, spent a lot of hours working and I always wanted to do well for him. Um, but then
0:34:05 I didn’t get drafted, tore my shoulder. I think often I’ve been, um, you know, misunderstood is
0:34:09 probably the way Bezos would explain it, like misunderstood. And, you know, we’ve got criticism
0:34:13 every step of the way, you know, in Gastonia, what are we doing here in Savannah? You know,
0:34:17 how dare you bring college summer baseball? Um, how dare you need the team to bananas? How dare you
0:34:21 leave traditional baseball to create this silly sport called banana ball? Uh, you know, it, it happens all
0:34:27 the time. The one that really fires me up now that I have a folder saved. Um, it’s a fad. It’ll be gone.
0:34:31 They’re 15 minutes are up. I have every one of those saved and I will never say anything back to them
0:34:34 except someone, some people, when they get really going, I just write, thanks for the inspiration.
0:34:40 Um, because it actually, and I mean that sincerely, you know, those, the and ones and all the groups that
0:34:45 have kind of come along and disappeared. I get fired up at that because, because we are completely
0:34:51 misunderstood. People think we are the Harlem Globetrotters. We’re building a sport. There will be a world
0:34:56 where the kids first ball they pick up is a yellow banana ball. There will be a world where banana
0:35:02 ball is played all over the world because of the entertainment level, because it’s not just about
0:35:07 people who love the sport. They love the fun. They love the show. Plus they love the crazy talent that
0:35:12 these guys can do with backflip catches and trick plays and the celebrations. They love how if they sit
0:35:16 in the upper deck, we’re going to come up there and we’re going to give them flowers and we’re going to
0:35:19 throw giveaways and we’re going to put on a show no matter where they’re sitting, even if they’re the
0:35:26 furthest seat away. And so I get excited for that. Um, money, you know, again, 10 years ago, we had
0:35:32 nothing. And so now, yes, we’re very fortunate with the businesses, but nah, I chase moments.
0:35:38 Like there’s certain moments, you know, our first game at Fenway Park. I was a kid who grew up with a
0:35:43 goal to play at Fenway Park, grew up south of Boston and we had the largest crowd of the year there. And we’re
0:35:47 all singing the moment yellow, which is a powerful moment. You’ve probably seen the videos. Yeah.
0:35:51 Everyone’s got their flashlight. The whole stadium is singing yellow and I’m on the field
0:35:57 and say, look at what we get to do together or our first football stadium with 81,000 fans.
0:36:00 And we’re putting on a halftime show with 250 people in the middle of the game, which should
0:36:04 never happen. And I’m jumping up and down because I’m feeling it. You know, when we’re going to do a
0:36:08 hundred thousand seat stadium, when we’re going to do a cruise where, you know, all these,
0:36:13 we’re playing aircraft carriers, all these things, play games at beaches. Those moments fire me up
0:36:17 because you get to feel a part of something and you get to feel alive. You know, I think I want to feel
0:36:21 alive. And I’m sure you guys get that feeling too with certain things. It’s not the money. It’s,
0:36:26 it’s these moments that, you know, really light me up. You’re sort of like this joyful version of
0:36:30 Dana White or Vince McMahon. You know, like I think Dana literally said the same thing in a,
0:36:35 in a press conference. He is like, he’s like, I’m in the, we’re in the business of moments. And he goes,
0:36:39 we sell good moments. And then sometimes we sell holy shit moments. And tonight was a holy shit moment.
0:36:42 He’s talking about a big knockout that happened. We’re a similar mindset. You know,
0:36:45 I’ve got to work a little bit with those guys. I haven’t connected directly with him yet, but I
0:36:51 mean, yeah, he creates these moments that you never imagined. I love it. He’s just sort of like rage
0:36:56 fueled more so than you’re like, I want to create this amazing family fun. You know, but, but I think
0:37:01 that’s part of the nature of fighting versus, you know, baseball. Yeah. Today’s episode is brought
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0:37:29 instead of just reading part of it, visit HubSpot.com. When you sit, when you step back, you know,
0:37:34 how do you sort of figure out the good ideas versus the bad? It’s easy to come up with 10 ideas a day.
0:37:38 It’s easy to sort of think of these things in hindsight, but you know, when you say the ticket
0:37:43 price is $25, there’s no ticket fees, we sort of round off the change. That’s cute when you’re
0:37:48 selling 200 tickets. Now you’re selling, I think I did the math. It’s like, this is like tens of
0:37:53 millions of dollars you’re eating in cost by eating the ticket fees or revenue left on the table,
0:37:55 depending on how you wanted to look at it. A bit of it.
0:38:00 And, um, you know, I’m sure there’s a, you know, someone over there with a spreadsheet who’s like,
0:38:06 uh, Jesse, this is not, can we not do that anymore? Like, can we charge for hot dogs? Cause you know,
0:38:09 this is, they know better in our organization at this point, but yes.
0:38:12 Well, like, I guess, what are your principles? So one thing you’ve talked about is like
0:38:17 fan first. And I think if you asked, if I go to a hundred businesses around here,
0:38:21 I said, are you a customer first business? They would all say, of course, of course,
0:38:25 customer matters. But then you go look at their actions and they’re totally out of line with,
0:38:28 with customer first. And so like, what are the different principles you have or the things you
0:38:33 find yourself repeating over and over again? That’s sort of, or when a new person comes in,
0:38:37 they really have to like almost break their brain and rebuild it to work the way you guys want to
0:38:39 work and come up with the ideas you guys want to come up with.
0:38:42 Yeah. Well, we started simply by naming our company fans, first entertainment. So that was the start.
0:38:47 So by naming the team fans, first entertainment, it made it very clear who we are, who we work for.
0:38:50 Uh, you know, we set our beginning, our mission fans, first entertain always like,
0:38:54 that’s what we do. Uh, as we’ve grown, we’ve developed a little bit more of our
0:38:58 core beliefs and our fans, first principles, which we talk about all the time. So like how we hire
0:39:04 who we are is I try to keep things very simple. Um, always be, so it’s alphabet, always be caring,
0:39:08 different, enthusiastic, fun, growing and hungry. So like that is who we are. And so even when we
0:39:12 hire people an essay, how do they fit those core beliefs? And then we have,
0:39:14 show us your future resume because we’re not really interested in what you’ve done in the past.
0:39:17 We want to know what you want to do in the future and how do you fit? If you say you want to stay
0:39:20 the same position for the next five years, you’re probably not growing and hungry. So we can find
0:39:24 that out. Uh, then a few years ago, we developed our fans first principles, uh, inspired a little bit
0:39:31 by, uh, Bezos and his 14 leadership principles. We developed 11 and 11 is a very big number in,
0:39:38 in banana land. So the 11th letter of the alphabet is K and the symbol for potassium
0:39:45 is K. So we use 11 a lot. I know it sounds like kind of silly, but the reality is we realized this
0:39:49 all started because of a banana. And if you think about Walt Disney, they were out of business bankrupt.
0:39:55 And he said, it all started because of a mouse and they had Leo. They had a lucky old rabbit was stolen
0:39:59 from them. He had nothing. And then he came up with Mortimer mouse. His wife corrected him and said,
0:40:05 let’s do Mickey. And that kind of changed everything. So for us, it started with a banana. So we have 11
0:40:10 fans first principles. We have 11 rules of banana ball. We do our countdown from 11. Uh, 11 is a very
0:40:15 big part of us. And so, yeah, it starts, uh, we’re fanatical about the fan. We entertain always play the
0:40:21 long game, whatever’s normal to the exact opposite. So again, I don’t want anyone ever gets excited about
0:40:25 normal, um, ideas are everything as we talked about. That is kind of how with the starting point,
0:40:29 everything constantly curious. We’re always going to learn from the best in the outside of the industry,
0:40:33 not in our industry outside. Uh, everything speaks. That’s a Walt Disney one. You know,
0:40:38 if you lose the detail, you lose it all. And so we’re obsessed with the details, fewer things done
0:40:44 better. So we eliminate all of our sponsorship in 2020, uh, which we eliminate all of our events.
0:40:49 And we focus solely on banana ball because we want to, what can you be the best in the world and we
0:40:53 believe we can create the greatest show in sports. And so we went obsessed with that, uh, relentlessly
0:40:59 resourceful. When we moved into our new office, a lot of people know this, but I made a trade.
0:41:03 I got all of the furniture traded for free. I sold my soul a little bit. I think I gave two or
0:41:08 three speeches, but we get all of it for free. And so that was very important. It was hundreds of
0:41:13 thousands of dollars. And so little mindset, uh, uphold the highest standards. That’s very
0:41:17 at the highest, not high. Cause everyone has a different version of their high standards.
0:41:22 And then finally always plus the experience. And so those guide us, we talk about them every Tuesday
0:41:26 in staff chat. We have people give examples of how we’re doing that. And then when we have
0:41:31 really big moments, we share again, a big example. So everyone knows how we do that.
0:41:35 So I’m, I’m cycle analyzing you a little bit because I’ve just, I, I admire you so much and
0:41:40 I want to like steal little pieces of like the way, the way you operate. You’re doing something that
0:41:44 we talked about, Sean, when we talked about MTV and how they sort of like said, this is the world
0:41:47 that we are building. So they basically like what you’re, what you’re doing is just saying,
0:41:52 I’m creating a world. I’m world building. Um, I’m not necessarily empire building, but you’re,
0:41:56 you’re creating this world with its own rules. And I think where a lot of entrepreneurs,
0:42:00 myself included, um, fall short is you say like your values and you’re like, well,
0:42:04 I’m just kind of going through the motions of getting it done. And if I asked you what your
0:42:08 values were, sometimes people wouldn’t even remember what they are. Um, or they would just,
0:42:13 you know, do it because they, they have to, you, you, you do this really good job of creating these
0:42:19 rules and processes that you actually abide to abide by. And some of them sound incredibly silly.
0:42:23 Like, you know, you have, uh, I like you have all these phrases, like you had the one city world
0:42:26 tour. I think your first world tour, it was just in Georgia or making Georgia.
0:42:30 There’s meaning behind that in the whole thing. There’s meaning behind that, which I can get into
0:42:34 later, but the point is, is that there’s meaning, there’s meaning to there’s intention and meaning
0:42:38 to everything. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, they don’t have the courage to say, this is the
0:42:42 world that I’m building. And here’s the rules and laws of the world that I’m building. And I’m
0:42:46 going to stick to them. And I might, some of them might sound silly, like wearing a yellow tuxedo all the
0:42:50 time, but there’s a reason for them. But if I live it according to the rules, it’s going to actually
0:42:55 become a thing. Did you always have that in you? Um, or is this like something where like you’ve
0:42:58 learned like, man, if I just say it enough times, I’ll start to believe it and it’ll start to become
0:43:05 true. Like walk, walk, walk us through that. No, I, I guess if you, it’s your, your average of the
0:43:09 five people you surround yourself with. Uh, my five people have been, you know, Walt Disney,
0:43:15 Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. Uh, and so, and I mean that not arrogantly, I have read and learned
0:43:19 more of what they think. And that’s around me. And so Walt Disney was a world builder.
0:43:23 And yeah, you better believe we will build a banana land, the first ever sports and entertainment
0:43:27 theme land. You better believe every single team that we build, we build with that point of view
0:43:31 in mind. I mean, if you don’t think we just built the local beach coconuts and we’re not going to build
0:43:36 a local beach, you’re crazy. And so, and if you don’t think we, we, we built the Indianapolis clowns
0:43:41 with a homage to the history of the 1940s and fifties to build that land. Like all of this has a bigger
0:43:46 picture. So, um, I just, I’ve surrounded myself with that. And, and I think, you know,
0:43:50 it fires me up and there’s certain principles. Like I want to go back to the one city world tour,
0:43:59 start small, dream big, one city world tour. We still call it a world tour. We’ve got numerous
0:44:03 opportunities to play internationally. We’ve turned it all down, but we call it a world tour
0:44:07 because that is where we are going. That is our vision. That is what we believe.
0:44:12 And so we’re going to continue to call it. And then we will pretty soon start doing international,
0:44:16 but everything we do, the cruise for the first time, a football stadium for the first time is a
0:44:21 one city dream big. We did a few football stands. Now we’re doing 10. We’re doing multiple nights at
0:44:25 the Superdome and the Patriot stadium. And literally we’re doing Kyle field and Neyland stadium with over
0:44:30 a hundred thousand fans. That was a one city test. And now we’re, we’re expanding it. So yeah,
0:44:34 I’d ever thought of the world builder, but I love it when you can create everything
0:44:39 and control everything. What people don’t realize control is such a big part of this.
0:44:44 Most people give up control. And when you give up control, you lose more fans than you realize.
0:44:49 We do our own, we built our own ticket system. Now we built our own secondary test system. We do all
0:44:52 the merchandise in house, everything from our house. We do our logistics in house. We do the entertainment
0:44:57 in house. We do our broadcast in house, which leaves millions of dollars on the table because
0:45:01 we’re doing it all on YouTube. And so like when you do it all in house, you afford yourself the
0:45:06 opportunity to learn and to fail, but also to connect closer with your fans because you can see directly
0:45:12 how they’re responding and not outsourcing your core competency. And so that’s part of this world,
0:45:15 I think is, you know, Walt Disney, you want to control everything when people came into his theme
0:45:20 park. And, you know, he couldn’t control a movie theater. When you go into a movie theater,
0:45:24 it could be dirty, it could be gross. Who’s serving you? Sticky, the food, all that, the lighting,
0:45:28 all of that, but he can control Disneyland. And I think about that often.
0:45:32 Did you raise money for this or do you, do you control a hundred percent of this business? What’s
0:45:37 the, what does the business side look like? Yeah. Well, we, we went into a lot of debt. We took in the
0:45:41 opening debt and it was just my wife and I, and we paid that off very quickly. Fortunately,
0:45:45 after our first two years, we were, you know, selling out games is good for the business model.
0:45:49 And especially the more fans you sell out, it helps. And then the merchandise has been bigger
0:45:56 than anybody’s ever imagined. So yeah, no, we’ve, we get offers daily probably, uh, at this point in
0:46:00 emails, uh, but we’ve turned them all away because they’re interested in, uh, you know, return and
0:46:05 they’re interested in, uh, you know, some controlling aspects. And, you know, I, I have no interest in
0:46:10 return. If, if, if a shareholder would say, start charging taxes, start doing shipping fees,
0:46:17 start having more sponsorship, take the huge TV, uh, partnerships. There’d be easy, probably 50
0:46:21 to a hundred million, just like that. And that’d be a no brainer for investor, but that doesn’t
0:46:25 interest me. So yeah, we, my wife and I own it a hundred percent and, uh, we don’t plan to change
0:46:31 that ever. Do you, on your weekly leadership meetings or whatever you guys have, do you pay
0:46:36 attention to the finances at all? Or do you just say like, uh, revenue is a scorecard for doing things
0:46:38 right. That’s all I care about. Make sure I have enough money in the bank to go do what I want.
0:46:41 You focus on the metrics that matter most to your customers. That’s what I pay most
0:46:45 attention to. So you better believe that I pay attention to the speed of every game. I pay
0:46:49 attention to how long the merchandise lines are at every game. I pay attention to how many trick
0:46:53 plays are, how many ball force sprints. Do you really, do you have a metric for like
0:46:58 wait times? Yeah. What’s the wait time right now? Uh, it depends on the stadium. That’s the biggest
0:47:02 challenge. So right now we’re at a really, if we go to Yankee stadium or Fenway park or a football
0:47:06 stadium, depending on the size and the setup. So we invested this past year with another experiment.
0:47:10 And Jared Orton, our president was brilliant in this. He said, we’re going to set up an outdoor
0:47:15 mall. So we bought a monster tent and that was a test at Yankee stadium. And that changed everything.
0:47:19 Our per cap went up. So we had to find the space to do that. And we did the same thing in Seattle.
0:47:23 We’re playing there. So it depends if you’re indoors, if you’re in stadium, we have a,
0:47:27 we can only have a small tent. It’s really bad. My goal is to get everyone within 10 minutes.
0:47:32 We’re not close to it right now, but the same thing at serving, uh, all you can eat food right
0:47:36 now in Savannah, everyone can get fed within five minutes. The first few nights, it was an hour.
0:47:42 So like, we’ll get there, but those are the metrics that I focus on. So to answer your question about
0:47:47 money, um, I get, I have one meeting a year and it’s coming up and it’s about an hour or two.
0:47:52 And our finance director and Jared will share us what we’re looking at. And me and Emily just said,
0:47:56 all right, great. Where are we reinvesting? And so what, uh, Dana White said too. I think Dana White,
0:48:01 I heard him say, he’s like, I, uh, I meet with the CFO occasionally, but I just, you know,
0:48:08 I don’t really care. It’s, it is what it is. And, and again, we’re very healthy and all the estimates
0:48:12 that people have are dramatically low on where we are. Like it is, we are very, very healthy. And I know
0:48:16 that I pay attention to right now we’re going, you know, obviously you go into Christmas holidays.
0:48:20 So how many fans are we serving merchandise? How quickly are we serving? How quickly are we
0:48:23 getting it out? We have a huge hundred thousand plus square foot warehouse that we have now.
0:48:27 And our team is like, get out, get out, get out. How quickly can we serve them? That’s the things.
0:48:30 So I’ll know exactly how many people we serve when we do a 24 hour shirt.
0:48:36 You know, we go through 30,000 orders in 24 hours. Like I know the metric this year versus last year.
0:48:40 And how do we continue to grow that? Cause that means we’re creating a better product and a better
0:48:44 experience and have more fans, uh, social media, I pay attention to all that as well.
0:48:47 Have you ever heard the founder of Airbnb talk about the 12 star experience?
0:48:51 Yes. I love Brian Chesky. He’s one I would love to meet me too. I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from
0:48:56 him. Yeah. Like the helicopter, the firefight, the, uh, fireworks going off the red carpet.
0:48:59 Yeah. Okay. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll connect you with him. But one of the things that you,
0:49:04 one of the things you reminded me of was there’s an anecdote about you pointed the cameras at the game,
0:49:10 the stadium at the fans instead of at the game. Cause you were like, I want to watch from the
0:49:14 security camera when people get bored and when they leave. Um, is this true? Cause you wanted to
0:49:19 basically like study the fan experience and try to understand like what, where are the lulls?
0:49:24 Where are the dips? Almost like a, like how Jimmy would look at his YouTube video retention chart and
0:49:29 say, oh, at seven minutes, there’s a dip. What did we do at seven minutes? Oh, that’s when we did our
0:49:33 ad reads. We need to make those more entertaining because we can’t, we can’t lose people during that
0:49:39 time. Yeah. Obsessed with that. Yeah. What people don’t know, that’s when I’m on the field and again,
0:49:43 I’m on the field in front of the dugout with our players. We’re always out there. I’m constantly
0:49:48 turning around and watching, uh, the fans and watching the reactions and our, my, our director
0:49:52 of entertainment who we’ve worked on now for five years, it’s so unbelievable because we can look at
0:49:56 each other and all of a sudden say, all right, energy music, energy music now. Cause we can know when
0:50:00 the energy is down, we can look at each other and just a feel and it’s, it’s really special. But
0:50:05 yeah, uh, it was geez, many years ago. And when we were looking at this debate to go to banana ball
0:50:09 and I realized that, Hey, fans were leaving games early. And I said, we need to document this.
0:50:12 And so, yeah, we, it was actually our, it was one of our staff members, one of our, our ushers,
0:50:19 we had them take pictures and video every 30 minutes, starting 5:36, 6:37, 7:38, 8:39. And we
0:50:24 realized at nine o’clock, the first influx of people left 9:15, a lot more 9:30 more. And so I was like,
0:50:28 we got to do a two hour time limit. And no one said they wanted a two hour time limit.
0:50:31 The games at that point in major league baseball were three hours and 12 minutes.
0:50:35 So even when I shared internally, our team was like, Jesse two and a half is probably fair. I mean,
0:50:40 that’s still dramatic. I go, no, you want people to want more. There’s a difference. You know,
0:50:46 a great comedian, you want more at the end, a great concert. You want the encore. I go in baseball,
0:50:51 everyone’s like, I’ve had enough. I was like, we got to create a product that people always want more.
0:50:55 And so that’s what that helped us determine the two hour time limit. And that’s how we look at
0:51:02 everything. So me and Tyler, the CEO of Beehive came up with a little challenge for you. It’s the
0:51:06 newsletter challenge. Now, if you know me, you know that I’m a big fan of newsletters. I got my own
0:51:09 newsletter. I also had a business that was a newsletter business that was amazing. I wrote this
0:51:13 newsletter about crypto. We grew it to quarter million subscribers and we ended up selling it
0:51:17 after a year for millions of dollars. And I want you to be able to do the same thing in your business.
0:51:22 So we’re doing a challenge. 10 grand is on the line. Plus me and Tyler will actually be in your
0:51:27 corner as growth advisors. You just need to go to beehive.com/mfm and you either start a new
0:51:31 newsletter or you move your current newsletter over there and five finalists will get picked to pitch.
0:51:37 Me and Tyler sort of like Shark Tank and the winner gets 10 grand. So go to beehive.com/mfm.
0:51:40 That’s beehive.com/mfm to enter the challenge today.
0:51:43 How many HQ staff do you have now?
0:51:49 I wish I wish I had the answer for you. I’ll give you an idea of what it looks like on the road.
0:51:54 So if we go to a major league stadium or football stadium, we travel with 200 plus people. If we have
0:51:59 a minor league stadium, it’s 150 people. And so we have three tours, we have six teams. So we’re
0:52:06 traveling with 500 plus people. Then we hire between 100 to 300 at each stadium as part-time staff to help
0:52:10 with merch, tickets, logistics, et cetera. And then we have our team in Savannah. So,
0:52:16 and then we have our cast. I mean, it’s, it’s hundreds, um, you know, some are equivalent,
0:52:20 some are full-time, but yeah, we’re hiring every week. There’s new people joining our team.
0:52:24 And I read that, uh, you had the business and you were like, we’re going to get into social media.
0:52:29 And I think it was like, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but like, okay, you, you know,
0:52:35 my coworker just start, go and figure this out. Um, is that true? And were you successful
0:52:40 in just getting like young and experienced people and inspiring them and that worked out and has that
0:52:44 worked out better than hiring more of the, the more of the experienced people?
0:52:49 We have very few from the outside. I would say 80, 80% have been started as interns. Um, you know,
0:52:53 and I, I was an intern for a little bit. My wife was an intern. Uh, we believe in that you learn,
0:52:58 you learn from seeing how people do in this kind of culture. And so, yeah, uh, social media again,
0:53:05 first insight, uh, can’t stop the peeling 2016. We created a music video to it. And Justin Timberlake,
0:53:10 we made cancel the peeling. It was a very rudimentary video, but I watched, I remember watching it,
0:53:15 put it on Facebook and I was like 10,000 views, 20,000 views, 30,000 views. You got like a hundred
0:53:19 thousand views. I was like, Whoa, people like this. And I was like, let’s do more of this.
0:53:25 And again, so once TikTok came around in 2020, when we started paying attention, um, yeah,
0:53:31 one of our interns, I said, just post every single day. She goes, what do I post? I go, I don’t know,
0:53:37 but make baseball fun. If it said, if it’s make baseball fun, if it fits that overall brand,
0:53:41 do it. And we learn. And then nothing happened the first few weeks. Then we had one that hit. It was
0:53:44 like, all right, it’s our players. What are our players doing? Okay. Now let’s do this with our
0:53:48 players. How about a music video with our players? How about this? And just kept iterating. We posted
0:53:53 every single day from 2020. And so that’s literally how we learned. And you think about our second team,
0:53:57 the party animals, they have more followers than every major league baseball team on TikTok,
0:54:02 because we started with them, you know, in 2022 or so. And so, yeah, everything is just,
0:54:07 you can’t be afraid of failing. I mean, every night we do 10 to 15 promotions we’ve never done in front
0:54:12 of a live crowd. Games, skits, ideas, every single night we have our scripts and, you know, it’s different
0:54:17 colors to show the new things we haven’t done before. Um, you know, that that’s where you learn.
0:54:20 And so like, we’re not afraid of failing because we’re just going to keep trying new things and our fans
0:54:24 will give us the benefit of the doubt because they know, hey, we’re just going to try something new next.
0:54:29 And they’re going to keep trying. Somebody told me you guys treat this almost like, uh,
0:54:33 Saturn at live. Like you have the, the pitch meeting, the way Saturn at life has this kind
0:54:37 of weekly schedule where they pitch and then they, they, then they, uh, script and then they rehearse,
0:54:41 then they sort of edit from there. Like, is that what you guys do? So you, you, you solve first your
0:54:45 problems, the fans. So every, the, the starting point of everything is what are the friction points
0:54:48 from your fan point of view, and then you can do it from your organization’s point of view.
0:54:52 So the friction for the point from the fans too long, too slow, too boring, you get nickel and dimed,
0:54:56 all that stuff. Um, so we just kind of went from there and to create that then from the internals,
0:55:01 like, okay, creative, it’s hard. It’s hard to come up with creative ideas all the time. I mean,
0:55:07 I know these idea books, it’s hard. And so we said, all right, well, who’s been sustaining creativity at
0:55:13 a very high level for a very long time and doing new shows constantly Saturday night live. So you
0:55:16 better believe I bought every book on Saturday live. And then I realized, guys, there’s a
0:55:21 documentary on a week, uh, behind the scenes of Saturday live. I think James Franco did. I was
0:55:25 like, guys, we have to watch this. So our creative team was a small team back then. I was like, we
0:55:28 watched it like, all right, they come in Monday. And then they pitched the idea. It was a John
0:55:31 Malkovich. It was, it was the host that way they pitched to John. Then they pitched to Lauren. Then they
0:55:35 start writing. Then they have an idea session. Then they have a table read. Then they start getting
0:55:38 the props and then they do it. And then they do a show at eight o’clock in front of a live audience.
0:55:42 And they watch what hits with the live audience. What doesn’t then they put the new ones in 1130
0:55:46 and cut everything else out. It’s like, guys, we’re the same thing. Like, let’s just do that.
0:55:50 And so we started, we built it. It’s Tuesdays because Monday’s our travel day. So Tuesday’s
0:55:55 our OTT session over the top ideas. Everyone comes with ideas. So we actually have a form
0:55:57 that you’ve got to fill up. Even just naming it over the top.
0:56:01 Yeah, a hundred percent. So yeah, over the top. And so, uh, form got to fill out by midnight.
0:56:05 So we have all the ideas, whether it’s a walkup, whether it’s a celebration, whether it’s,
0:56:08 uh, you do something in the crowd, whatever that is. And then if there’s a video or a
0:56:12 full description, and then our meeting starts at 10 o’clock, we review all those.
0:56:16 Then we have a smaller group meeting at 11 o’clock. Then the players share some of their ideas,
0:56:20 broadcast, share some of their ideas. And by four o’clock on Tuesday, we have a table read
0:56:23 where we go over what’s going to be in the script. Then we start getting the props,
0:56:27 the creative. Then we do rehearsals in Savannah. Then we do rehearsals in the city.
0:56:32 Then we do rehearsals in front of our VIP, our very important bananas, which is our special VIP group.
0:56:36 And so we get to watch them. How do they react? Are they taking video? Are they into it or not?
0:56:39 And then we put it into the show. And that’s repeated with every one of our teams.
0:56:43 This business sounds so hard to run. You have, I mean, so you have that,
0:56:47 you have just the production of the SNL, you know, just so you have your personnel issues. You’re going
0:56:51 to have some personality clashes. You’re going to have like pay, paying them and keeping everyone in
0:56:55 line and then getting funny stuff out the door. Then you have merch. I think merch makes up half
0:56:58 or 40% or something of your revenue, which is hundreds of millions of dollars. You have supply
0:57:03 chain issues. Then you’re traveling with hundreds of people. Then you’re doing social media. I mean,
0:57:08 this is an incredibly complicated business. You’re playing the game on extreme hard mode,
0:57:11 and I respect you for it. It’s way harder than I thought. What do you name it all? I’m like,
0:57:14 oh my gosh, there’s so much. And then you just have like normal company operations.
0:57:17 And the principle is don’t do the same show ever again.
0:57:22 Every show has to be brand new. And yes, the logistics are impossible. We hired someone from
0:57:26 the military to help us. And like, because we’ve got trucks all over the country, multiple trucks.
0:57:30 When we’re going to a football stand with 100,000 people, we need 12 to 14 trucks. But then we also
0:57:33 have two other games in another part of the country that we need separate merchandise,
0:57:36 and the teams are playing each other different times. So we’re bringing all the merchandise and
0:57:40 all the show and all the props to go there. And then we’re flying everyone around the country,
0:57:42 getting them in. It’s crazy.
0:57:46 And then check this out. Look, if you move your head, so move your head like this. It looks like
0:57:49 you have two books behind you. I think you wrote two books, right? Just Jesse Cole.
0:57:50 Yes.
0:57:55 Oh my God. Okay. So Jesse Cole has three books. And then I also read online. And then you have the Hulu
0:57:59 documentary. And I think you have another one somewhere else. And then I think I read somewhere
0:58:04 online that I think you said you don’t take a salary or you’re one of the lowest paid people,
0:58:10 and that you live off of your speaking fees. Okay. So Jesse has a book, three books, documentaries,
0:58:16 a speaking fee. And then this monster of a business that is incredibly complicated.
0:58:18 What price are you paying to do all this?
0:58:24 It’s a good question. I think it’s the right question. I believe in doing what gives you energy.
0:58:29 I’m very, very fortunate that what I do gives me energy. When I first started in Gastonia and I was
0:58:36 doing everything, operations, hiring, you name it, I was worn out. Now, like speaking or being with you
0:58:41 guys right now, this fires me up. I love creating. I love sharing. I love growing. So when I can go
0:58:49 speak, that’s an energy giver. And so I think our family, we homeschool now. We have three kids,
0:58:56 we homeschool, we travel. I think I do daddy-daughter dates and burger boys with my son. And I focus on that,
0:59:02 but I can always be better in that area. I’m obsessed. I’m obsessed with it. I love it. It brings me so much
0:59:07 joy. And I stay really focused, even though it sounds like there’s lots of things. I’m focused
0:59:11 on trying to create the greatest fan experience in sports and the greatest show in sports every day.
0:59:15 And if I’m speaking, I’m sharing about it. If I’m on a podcast, I’m sharing about it. Or in the morning,
0:59:20 I’m working on my team, I’m creating. So it’s really, it sounds widespread, but it’s all focused on doing
0:59:26 something very, very narrow. What’s your talent strategy? So are you like, oh, we use recruiters and then
0:59:30 they come in for interviews. Or is it like you look in the TikTok comments and you find people like,
0:59:34 what, what, what is Jesse doing to source some of these like diamonds that, that, that end up being
0:59:39 there? This is the crazy one guys. So like, yes, I’m very grateful that we have 4.2 million people
0:59:45 on our, you know, wait list to get tickets or whatever. Uh, there’s 12,700 on our wait list to
0:59:51 work with us. And so we have a, we have a wait list. So it’s what I believe is, is attracting over
0:59:56 recruiting. If you’re very vocal on who you are and what you stand for, you often attract people. And I
1:00:00 attract people. I never imagined we’d attract that. Uh, I mean, you guys, I was listening to
1:00:06 you guys before we even knew each other. Like, again, I, I, I’m so grateful for that. And so,
1:00:12 yes, and we do, I’m working with Cirque du Soleil right now on bringing on some cast at a higher level,
1:00:14 because you better believe the Indianapolis clowns. It’s going to be the greatest show people
1:00:18 have ever seen. It’s going to, we’re going to take that to a whole nother level. So I’m working
1:00:22 with some of the, you know, work with WWE and UFC on some stuff, you know, people that are great,
1:00:26 but a lot of it is just attracting young, hungry talent that believe in us and believe
1:00:30 in what we’re doing and they’ll give their hearts to it. And they’re very, very special.
1:00:35 I think that if I had to make a prediction, I think, and I’d be curious to hear, like, if you ever,
1:00:38 we probably don’t have enough time, but like, we brainstorm ideas here on this podcast a lot,
1:00:44 but I would be curious. I think that, um, so Ari Emanuel, who, um, runs Endeavor, uh, and they own
1:00:50 WWE, UFC, KBR, whatever, a ton of stuff. He did this great podcast with Patrick O’Shaughnessy,
1:00:55 and he was like, basically I’m betting, uh, I’m making an anti-AI bet. So he was saying like,
1:01:01 hotel bookings for Thursdays are now up through the roof. Uh, busy drive times are at 11 AM. And
1:01:04 he’s like, basically people are working less and they want to go out and get and have experiences.
1:01:08 And so my prediction for you guys is that there’s going to be a second win. I mean,
1:01:13 you’re already like at like, um, you’re, you’re, I don’t want to say you’re at a peak, but you’re like,
1:01:17 you’re like killing it right now. I think there’s going to be another like macro trend that pushes you
1:01:23 even further up this mountain of glory. Are you feeling that? And also have you seen any other,
1:01:27 like a lot of people don’t realize this, that Cirque du Soleil is a multi-billion dollar company.
1:01:33 Have you seen like any cool events, businesses that like are shockingly large or well-run or that inspire you?
1:01:38 Uh, you know, I mean, I, I think I may, I named the main, there’s probably other ones out internationally
1:01:42 that I’m not aware of at this point, but yeah, no, I, I’m fascinated by the cruise industry too,
1:01:46 as well, because they’re, they’re combining the entertainment, the shows, everything they’re
1:01:51 creating their own worlds. So, uh, I’ve got a lot closer. Obviously we’re doing our own to learn.
1:01:56 Can we put on a show for five days for all of our, for our fans with no playing of banana ball?
1:02:00 So that’s a good test that we’re looking at, but yeah, no, I don’t, I don’t think I look at that,
1:02:04 but I, I I’m fascinated about the youth game of banana ball and developing that.
1:02:08 We did a one city world tour test with a youth tournament that sold out in Cleveland,
1:02:12 had kids from 48 States come in. So we’re going to build the sport that way. And then obviously
1:02:16 continue to look at, I mean, we’re going to do a tour movie. I’m really inspired by what Taylor
1:02:20 Swift has done and how she built that ecosystem, created a great tour that all these little,
1:02:23 you know, things from the flywheel that jumped off it. We’re going to do some of that.
1:02:26 We’re creating original music. So I haven’t announced, but we have an unbelievable music
1:02:31 partnership with very well-known, uh, group that’s going to help create original music for us.
1:02:36 Um, so all those steps I think are going to take the show to another level. If we keep making our
1:02:42 show better, I believe everything will take care of itself. We just, we can never settle for,
1:02:46 Hey, that last year’s show was great. Let’s do the same thing. That’s, that’s what scares me.
1:02:52 If we saw you when you were a kid, like a teenager, 12 years old, baby, what would we have seen?
1:02:58 Were you like selling CDs and like hustling entrepreneurially? Were you like Mr. Popular at
1:03:02 school? Were you on the fringes? Like, who were you when you were young? And would there have been
1:03:08 any clues that this is who comes out of that? Yeah, no, I was, uh, I was, I was, uh, I was a shy kid
1:03:15 to start. Um, and then when I was by myself a lot. And so, I mean, I remember literally during the
1:03:18 summer, my dad would go to work and you know, I was like 12 or whatever, 30 days. Like Jesse,
1:03:21 what’d you do? I was like, I rode to Alex’s house. I rode my bike to John’s house. I didn’t do that.
1:03:26 Like I didn’t have a lot of friends and I had my friends through baseball. And so anytime I was
1:03:30 around my baseball team, I would try to create attention. I would try to do anything. Cause
1:03:35 it was my time around people, my age. And so, you know, I think that, that love and being around
1:03:40 people, I think I didn’t have that as much. And now being around 50,000, a hundred thousand people
1:03:45 and staying till the last fan leaves to sign their autographs. Like that is something that I think
1:03:50 because of what I had and what I, what I wanted now I can have at a higher level that I keep pushing for
1:03:54 that. But yeah, I was, I mean, creating attention. We, we, instead of public speaking,
1:04:00 which ironic I now speak, we created movies. So we used iMovie and we were the first ones to create
1:04:04 movies. So I learned how to create movies and social media and like, like not social media back then,
1:04:08 but how to make videos that people were interested in that guided us with what we do on social media.
1:04:14 So, um, yeah, I was creative, but I was alone. I just played baseball and I just, I think it was more
1:04:20 the world I surrounded myself with after, after school, though, the Walt Disney, the PT Barnum,
1:04:24 the Bill Vex. It was that world that really, you were interested in those guys when you were younger.
1:04:30 No, none of them. No, it was after. So like, yes. Did I go to Walt Disney and I was the big kahuna
1:04:33 Typhoon Lagoon, which they let me in early and I got to have this whole experience. It was magical.
1:04:38 Did I have some really cool experiences, uh, at AU national tournaments or going to Disney? Yes.
1:04:43 I didn’t know anything about them other than what most people knew. It was that world I surrounded
1:04:47 myself afterwards. Like you guys. I mean, think about this 10, 15, 20 years ago. It’s what you’ve
1:04:51 learned now in the last 10, 15 years, that world has impacted you. You know, I, maybe there were some
1:04:57 influences obviously back in school, but it’s more now you find this new world of entrepreneurs and
1:05:02 creative thinking and creators and that inventors. And that, that fires me up.
1:05:05 Sean, have you ever seen the talks? So Jesse does these things on his Instagram
1:05:11 where, uh, he gives the players a talk before the game. I don’t know if it’s like new players or
1:05:14 something like that, or if it’s before every game, but you have the guys in the stands.
1:05:14 No, I haven’t seen these.
1:05:17 Okay. So he gets everyone. I’m going to tell the story for you, Jesse, as an outsider,
1:05:21 and you can correct me if I’m, if I’m getting it wrong, but you have the, I think it’s the team,
1:05:25 but maybe there’s some of the staff. You have them, I think in the outfield stands or
1:05:28 somewhere like not in the front row. And you’re like, you’re sitting here because you need to be
1:05:31 where like some of the worst seats are. So you understand that we have to make this great for
1:05:36 everyone. And then you tell this amazing story and it looks how I’m, I imagine you repeat some of the
1:05:41 stories, but every time I’ve watched it, it’s been a unique story and it inspires them so, so much where
1:05:47 I’m like, this fucking guy has made like playing like silly baseball, like seem like I’m like saving
1:05:52 the world. And I’m so invested into it where I’m like, you guys are doing God’s work, right? Like
1:05:58 you’re the guy in stilts is doing God’s work. Like I’m so bought in. I agree with you. I agree. I agree
1:06:04 with you. You’ve judoed me where like, I’m totally bought into this. Uh, did you have to learn how to
1:06:09 storytell like this? Because you’re doing such a good job of getting me invested. And I see the players,
1:06:13 the players and typically baseball players, by the way, when I grew up, I grew up or hung out with
1:06:16 the college baseball players. They weren’t like the coolest guys. They were always kind of like
1:06:21 too cool for school. Like they didn’t want to like do silly stuff. And these guys are like so wholesome
1:06:26 and awesome. Did you learn how to like tell stories like this? Because it’s incredibly effective.
1:06:30 Thank you. A hundred percent. And yeah, I still to this day, I tell that right. Those talks.
1:06:36 Yes. It’s whenever we come to a city, the first thing we do is we have our fans first talk.
1:06:41 And so that is the entire staff, the cast, the players. So we can have upwards of 200 people in
1:06:46 those, but yes, all both teams, the players are there. And every week we have a new talk and it is
1:06:51 one of the most stressful things for me. And I’ll tell you, I could speak in front of a fortune 50 company
1:06:58 or 10,000 people. I’m more nervous speaking to our 150 people, because I know my words,
1:07:04 our words mean so much to them and it’s weighted differently. And I care truly how it impacts them.
1:07:08 So yeah, every week it’s like, what’s our message? How does it fit fans first? How does it fit a
1:07:12 principle? How do we, you know, like win the upper deck? We talk about that all the time, win the upper
1:07:17 deck. And, you know, I just think about, I have a lens now. You guys look at this like one, two lenses
1:07:22 I have is a friction fighter. Wherever I go, I see friction. So this is what Walt Disney said.
1:07:26 Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always asking what’s wrong with this thing and how it can be improved.
1:07:30 If I go to a restaurant, if I’m driving down the road, if I’m going to a store, I notice what are
1:07:34 the friction points from a customer point of view. That’s just my lens. Now, the other friction or the
1:07:41 other lens I see is I always see stories in everything. Anything that happens, what’s the story that can be
1:07:46 told? And when I think about speaking, it’s like, what’s your story? What’s your message? How can
1:07:49 people get one main thing out of it and then leave? And so that’s what those short, short
1:07:53 speeches. So like to give you an example, one I haven’t shared in forever was Russell Wilson.
1:08:00 You guys know the quarterback in the NFL. He played for me in Gastonia. And literally the first night I
1:08:05 had all the players come down from the roof and to high five the fans coming out to the, the, the,
1:08:08 the field. And I said, guys, just, Hey, high five, the fans get on the field. We’re gonna do the
1:08:12 starting lineup. So I’m up on the roof and like batting first for the Gastonia Grizzlies from NC State,
1:08:16 number one, Russell Wilson. He goes down batting second from Clemson and each one goes down. And
1:08:21 I’m up on the roof and I see all the players on the field, except for Russell Wilson. So finally,
1:08:25 I see everyone in the field, except Russell. So I go down onto the grandstand. I see he’s way out in
1:08:32 the left field grandstand. He was high-fiving every single kid in the stadium. He was 22 years old
1:08:37 and he knew what mattered. It was high-fiving every fan more than getting out of the field.
1:08:43 And I just think about moments like that. Guys, we’re doing something so much bigger
1:08:49 than just putting on a show. It’s how we make people feel. You put yourself as that five-year-old
1:08:53 kid, that seven-year-old kid that went to their first game. And all you wanted was an autograph.
1:08:57 You wanted a ball. You wanted to high-five your favorite player. And how many times did you not
1:09:03 get that? We can provide that every single day. And now you guys are even bigger, looked upon even
1:09:09 bigger than some of those major leaguers now. We owe it to that kid to do that. And so we just share
1:09:12 these messages and examples every day this morning.
1:09:13 Yeah, you gave us the speech. I’m ready.
1:09:15 Well, that wasn’t the speech.
1:09:17 You want to go work on my dance?
1:09:19 I don’t think I’ve shared that one with you guys. I don’t think I’ve shared that one,
1:09:22 because it was back in Gastonia days. So you brought me back to that one.
1:09:23 So I’m in, man. I’m in.
1:09:27 Jessica, there’s a quote that you remind me of. We can leave it on this, which is,
1:09:32 this is John Wesley quote. He says, “Light yourself on fire with passion, and people will come
1:09:36 from miles to watch you burn.” And I feel like that’s what you’ve done. Like you,
1:09:40 you have lit yourself on fire with passion and you’ve done that with this thing that none of
1:09:45 us even realized we wanted. And now millions of people want to come watch you guys burn. And I
1:09:46 think that’s, that’s amazing.
1:09:49 I got, well, yeah, hopefully not the other burn way, because some people probably do. The baseball
1:09:56 traditional is impurist, but I want you guys to see a show. I’m so impressed on how much you’ve known
1:10:00 and how much you’re able to talk about this, but for you to see it and see it from the beginning to the
1:10:04 end and watch what goes into it. So just got to get mentally prepared, you know, get some good rest
1:10:08 before that. – Well, God bless you. Thank you so much. We appreciate you coming on. This is,
1:10:11 this has been an old timer. – A lot of fun. Thank you guys.
1:10:13 Seriously. Really appreciate y’all. – All right. That’s it. That’s a pod.
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