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You may have heard of the popular baseball performance team the Savannah Bananas that recently hit Nationals Park and are heading to the Orioles’ stadium later in the summer. But what’s behind their popularity?
A Virginia professor said the team is more than entertainment and their model is a lesson in business.
“They have all kinds of stuff to make this much more than just a baseball game,” said Les Alexander, professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
He said when he first saw the Savannah Bananas with their pitcher on stilts, choreographed dances and creative rules, such as stepping out of the batter’s box counting as a strike, he didn’t just see a successful franchise, he saw a potential business lesson for his students.
“They try to remove all the pain points from attending and leaving the game. They’re thinking about everything from parking to concessions to your in-seat experience,” Alexander said.
He said they even added a two-hour time limit so they don’t drag on. He attended a recent Banana Ball game in D.C. as part of his research and said he was impressed by the follow-up messaging.
“After the game, they sent out a handwritten note by one of the players thanking everybody in attendance for coming. I thought that was a really nice touch that again, I haven’t seen, you know, NFL or Major League Baseball teams do that in my history,” he said.
Alexander graduated from the University of Virginia and likes to use real-life examples of successful business plans in his teachings.
He said he found it impressive that the Bananas have sold out stadiums across the country this summer. The team drew more than 80,000 fans during two sold-out games at Nationals Park in late June.
He has been working on the case study through interviewing members of the Bananas team and the front office for the past six months.
He’s working on a business case study about the team and will be teaching the class to University of Virginia alumni in the fall before teaching it to students in the spring. His main lesson?
“They are going to continuously innovate and try new things, and that’s sort of part of the fabric of the DNA of the organization, is they’re not afraid to try new things, and they’re OK with some new ideas failing,” Alexander said.
He said another lesson from the Bananas is fans first. He said they work to cut down common issues visitors have with going to games and make the experience a little smoother as part of their customer service plan.
“We talk about the importance of customers in business, but really focusing on your customers and reducing the pain points, and what can we do to make them a valued partner in what we’re doing, and explain to them how much we appreciate and truly show and do the things to recognize that relationship in a positive way is great,” Alexander said.
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