How Jesse Cole Turned Baseball Into a Billion Dollar Show

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We thought it was a very good decision for my wife and I to get married and then go into over $1 million in debt. Sleeping on an airbed, only selling 2 tickets, down to our last dollar. It was brutal. We ran out of money. Emily turned to me and said, "Jess, we have to sell our house." How did you continue to believe in yourself when everyone said no? It was chaos. He is an entrepreneur, author, and the creator of Banana Ball, transforming traditional baseball into a fast-paced entertainment experience. Please welcome Jesse Cole.

Almost everyone said you're the craziest person ever.

I still do. This is me, and I'm not going to hide away from this. Everyone said stay with that because that was the safe bet.

I was bored. I was like, why isn't there non-stop action?

Why isn't there entertainment? Why aren't there things happening? How can you bring entertainment to it? How we do everything. Start small, dream big. We're not going to fail. We're going to find a way and we're going to do it the same way we've done it from day one.

Final question, Jesse. What's your definition of greatness?

That's a tough question because I'm going to get criticism on that one.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Jesse Cole in the house. My man. Good to see you.

It's many years coming, man.

I'm glad to be with you. We met 8 years ago at a social media blogging conference, I think it was. And I remember vividly you coming up in this outfit and saying hello to me. And you sent me the photo of us because we took a photo that day. So there's a photo proof of this.

You must have thought this guy's a lunatic at that point. You must— who is—

my original thought was this guy has a lot of passion, a lot of excitement. And it reminded me not of me, but it reminded me the energy of like going for a dream so big. You even told me right then, like, I took over this like wooden bat league, this like semi-pro thing.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to make it this new experience. And I was just like, maybe we only had like 2 minutes together. Yeah. I really didn't get the full context. Yeah. But I remember thinking, this is going to be extremely challenging. I remember thinking like, this is going to be very hard to do what you were thinking about doing. But at the same time, like, if you're willing to show up every single day and believe in your dream and believe in yourself, even when everyone says no to you, that is like the true testament of someone who's able to do something great. And I think, and that's the first thing I want to ask you about, because I know 100% that almost everyone said you're the craziest person ever.

I still do.

To take over, to take over essentially a wooden bat league that makes no money and try to make it this brand that it is today, where you reinvent a game that has been around for hundreds of years or whatever. That people have stayed true to it in a certain way for so long that nothing's really changed or evolved and innovated in it.

Yeah.

And you wanted to do something completely different and create an experience for people that they've never had in their lives. And I bet most people said, like, don't do it. It's too much work. You're crazy. You can't do this. It's going to be too hard. How did you— how did you learn to believe in a vision that you were— had never seen been done before in this sport? When everyone said no, and also you're, you're living on an air mattress with your wife, you got no money, you sell everything to like go after this and everyone's saying you're crazy, just stick to like the safe sales ticketing job in baseball.

Yeah.

How did you continue to believe in yourself when everyone said no?

Well, I think if you go back and I think a lot of the, the greatest creators, they're creating something that they would love. And so, you know, I played baseball my whole life, just like you, an athlete. And, you know, there's a difference when you're playing the game. You know, when you're in the action, when you're in the arena, you know, I was on the mound and you could control the game and impact the game and, you know, every pitch mattered. And then I tore my shoulder when I was in college and that dream, you know, and I was talking to professional teams and I was, I was like, it's gonna happen. Like, just believe, just like you, this is gonna happen. I'm gonna have this dream fulfilled. And then it was gone, right? Like that. And I had no idea what I was gonna do. And, you know, everyone said I'd go into coaching and, you know, I tried coaching, but when I was coaching, I realized something. You know, I'm sitting in the dugout and, you know, I have an idea of what's going on in the game. I know the players, I know a little bit of strategy. I know what we're trying to do. And I realized, wow, I am bored out of my mind.

Yeah.

And because you're not in the game, not in the game, I'm not playing. And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, and I even know what's going to happen. I know. All right, we're going to hit and run here. All right. We're putting in our closer in the 8th inning early. We're going to do this. We're going to move our outfielders. I know what's happening, but I'm still not in the game and even on board. And I'm thinking, I remember looking around, this was my Cape Cod league. And, you know, one of the old historic college summer baseball leagues, but one of the best ones., and people are all sitting on these, you know, wooden bleachers. This is, this is not even semi-pro or is this like, well, it's the same what we ended up going into college summer baseball.

But no one's getting paid or what?

No, you can't. It's, it was all back then. NCAA's changed a lot. But yeah, it was just, it was college players, college ball player in the summer. And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, everyone's bored. Everyone's bored. Well, you know, baseball traditionalists, they're fine. But I'm like, there's not a lot of families. People are sitting, kids are trying to play catch up cuz they're, they're not watching the game. Kids are running around trying to do things and the actual game isn't as exciting. Now, baseball tradition is that you're kidding me, you, you know, and that's fine. But for me, I was bored and I was like, why isn't there nonstop action? Why isn't there entertainment? Why aren't there things happening? Why isn't there music playing nonstop? Why isn't all this? And you know, maybe it's my crazy ADHD, you know, mind, but I was like, I needed more. And so I was very fortunate, you know, I got an offer, an opportunity to be a GM at 23 years old. And it was the worst team in the entire country. It was a team. You don't get offered that job unless it was a team in North Carolina. And basically our, the owner there, which, you know, so fortunate he gave me that opportunity. He said, Jesse, you know, we really have nothing to lose.

That's, and go do something.

There was $268 in the bank account my first day. The team was losing, you know, a hundred, over $100,000 a year, 200 fans come to the game. So I just, I started learning everything on Walt Disney, P.T. Barnum. I studied, studied Cirque du Soleil, WWE, SNL. I just looked at all the entertainment and I was like, how can you bring entertainment to it?. And then I just started trying things and testing things and grandma beauty pageants and, you know, flatulence fun nights and dancing players. And we started testing things. But what I realized is like, it was fun. There was an excitement cuz you were about to try something out on the field. It might work, it might not, but it was in the spirit of fun and trying to get people in the crowd to pay attention. And you know, when you say, how did I believe in it? It's because every day I spent 10 years 10 years in Gastonia, North Carolina, before Savannah even started going.

Wow. So you're the GM for 10 years?

Yeah, GM. And then I became the managing partner, then I bought the team and, you know, I built up in there. Wow. But like, we had one media story in 10 years. I was, you know, we were outside, we're a suburb of Charlotte. Charlotte got all the media. They had the professional teams. We were this little tiny team. I had a laboratory of 10 years of testing things and trying to get fans to care about a small college summer baseball team. People don't— people forget that story. And, and things were failing every night, but we were growing. People were saying, what are they gonna do tonight? What are they gonna do tonight?

Really? Oh yeah.

I mean, we started in 2,000 fans a game.

Come on.

We were 4th in the country in attendance. Wow. Out of college summer baseball. But still, you know, team became profitable and I was like, this is fun. And then that's when that led to the opportunity. So I had 10 years of going from nothing to seeing a fan base built from just experimentation and fun and letting the players have fun and let them celebrate and let them dance and let them get in the crowd and deliver roses to little girls.

Wow.

And let them do things people hadn't seen before. Break down the barriers between the fans and the players. And so 10 years.

I'm curious, why didn't that take off into something like it is today from that team?

Well, again, you think about, there was an already, it was the Gastonia Grizzlies.

Is it the league? Is that what it was?

Well, yeah, there's a few things. I mean, it was in a regular college summer baseball league. And so We had to play traditional baseball.

Yeah. You can't do all this stuff.

You can't, we, and that, that was again, watching the fans over and over again when they were leaving, when they were getting up, when they weren't paying attention, studying the fans to realize we gotta change the actual game. You know what I realized? It's like a hot dog stand. You know, we had unbelievable condiments, you know, the mustard, the relish, the ketchup, the sauerkraut, whatever. That was all the promotions, the entertainment, but the hot dogs still need to work. And that was the game of baseball.

The main product.

The main product, the hot dog.

So there's only so much you could do around the product.

Around the product.

We still had to play within the rules.

Yeah.

You had to win.

You had to try to win. Yeah. It was, and And we still try to win. It's just based on entertainment first.

Interesting.

And so, so yeah, it was a, it was just a regular traditional baseball. And so how did I get that belief? It was 10 years of building.

And when you go to away games, you can't implement a lot of this stuff. I'm assuming that was the before.

Could you? We, we started banana ball, we started testing, we did a one city world tour. Mindset, start small, dream big. You know, I love that. Just that's what, how we do everything. Start small, dream big. So we called it a one city world tour, which is ridiculous, but we still call it a world tour today.

So it was an experiment. One game.

Yeah. But world tour, because that's where we're going. It'll be all over the world. We believe it. No doubt about it. So we're setting that mindset of where we're going, but we're starting small. And we did a one-city world tour, but we also at that same point still had the college summer baseball team. So we started creating all this attention. People say, what are they doing with this game? Bananaball fans catching foul balls for outs. What is happening? This game is crazy. And then we did 7 cities and we started playing around the country and we started getting a lot more national attention. We had the first ESPN show, but we were still playing traditional baseball.

This is, okay, so this is when you took over Savannah Bananas, right?

Yes. This is later with Savannah Bananas. And so good context. And so you were asking what happened.

So you're still playing wooden bat league.

We're still playing wooden bat league.

Normal baseball. Yes. So, but then you're like, all right, let's do this one night only.

Yeah. One night only and do it. And then we'll do this, try this whole thing. Always this lab, this experiment.

Wow.

We tested it all.

So that was when it first started. When was that first night?

2021. So yeah.

Really?

Yeah. But yeah, the first, the first game of actual banana ball was 2020 during COVID in our, in Savannah. We had the, the bananas play the bananas. We actually had, right, right. We actually had a split squad team. Uh-huh. And we did it and fans had no idea what was going on. It was absolute chaos.

'Cause it wasn't a normal baseball game.

No, it was just, we wanted to test this. It was during COVID We could only have 1,000 fans at the stadium. I was like, might as well test it.

Really?

So we tested it then. But to answer, go back to your full circle. So we were doing both for years. And so 2022, we would go to play in these other little towns and they were expecting banana ball and we were the away team and we had to play traditional baseball fan. These stadiums were all selling out in Asheboro, in Forest City, in Thomasville. They were upset. They weren't playing. No, the owners was— the owners, the teams were pumped. The fans were like, what?

What are you doing?

I was like, we gotta, we gotta make the clean break. And we left. And Lewis, the criticism we received, you're leaving traditional baseball. We had consultants, high-paid consultants saying, no matter what you do, you need to keep playing traditional baseball. Everyone said stay with that. 'Cause that was the safe bet. We were selling out every game playing traditional baseball.

And how much were you making for the Savannah Bananas in normal Wooden Bat League.

Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, you know, was this Wooden Bat League? Yeah, it was a little bad, but you play 30 games during the summer. We were selling out 4,000 seats.

How much can a team make?

Like $3 to $4 million. $3 to $4 million. It was very profitable. It was a very healthy team. But it's never been about money for us. I was like, we are bringing this joy to only 100,000 fans for the whole season.

Yeah.

The whole season. There are people around the country that we believe in this. How do we go one city at a time, one fan at a time? And so that lab that was 10 years in Gastonia, we turned that lab into Savannah after, like you mentioned, sleeping on an airbed, only selling 2 tickets, down to our last dollar grocery shopping with just $30 a week. I mean, it was brutal. We went through— when we first came to Savannah, everyone doubted us because they're like, you're college summer baseball. We had minor league baseball here. We had professional baseball. We were—

Savannah was minor league baseball for 90 years. Oh, so did it go down to—

Yeah. No, they left. Because they left and the—

So you took over, there was still an arena there.

There was a stadium.

The team left and you're like, I'm going to go start this.

What do you have? I love how you said arena too. It goes back to your background. I love that. Yeah, no, it was an old stadium. Wow. And when we got there, this—

So you acquired the—

We thought it was a very good decision for my wife and I to get married and then go into over $1 million in debt. We thought that was a very good decision.

Not on the wedding itself.

The wedding was the wedding, but Yeah, no, we had to, we bought the team from the league and we had to make payments over many years to buy that. Then we had to put money in to start up and all that. I mean, it was, it was a lot and it was myself, my wife, our 24-year-old team president, Jared, who's still our president today and leading us and 3 22-year-olds straight out of college. And yeah, we showed up, the phone lines were cut, the internet lines were cut. The former team took everything out of the stadium. There was nothing left.

What year was this?

This was in October of 2015 when we came.

Wow. So really 6 years after that, you did the one night only.

Yeah. So 3 years later, I first started writing down the ideas because we went from, we sold 2 tickets in our first few months, January 15th, 2016, we got the call, we ran outta money and Emily turned to me and said, Jess, we have to sell our house. So we sold our house, emptied our savings account, put that money in, go in more debt. And we had to get people excited to coming to a college summer baseball game.

Did you think about this, what you're doing now, back then in 2015, where you're like, oh, I'm gonna do this? This is what happened.

No, Manaball wasn't even a, it wasn't even a thought. What I thought was, what if we could start from scratch and create a whole entertainment product that's not just the Gastonia Grizzlies that we had 7 years and all this built-in thoughts? What if we could build a new team, a new identity, a new story, a new circus, a new show, all of that., but a new sport also.

No, but within baseball.

Yes. You know, and that's why, so that's what you did for 5 years essentially. Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. Because you, you, we did that and then by watching our fans, so, you know, we sold a couple tickets and then we said, all right, we gotta get our fans excited. So we said, we made every ticket all inclusive. So we said, you come to Savannah, our games, all your burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, soda, water, popcorn, dessert, everything, $15 total.

What?

No ticket fees, no convenient fees, no service fees. Wow.

Now it starts selling out.

Well, they got, we, we had to get them into to experience it. But we didn't know how to do it.

Yeah.

The first night we went through 10,000 pieces of meat in an hour.

Oh my God.

Fans waited almost 3 hours. So we, we made mistakes, but we just kept going. And, and so, you know, when they, they first came out, they were like, wow, you know, we had a banana baby. We put a baby in a banana costume and lifted the baby up and saying, nah, Slovenia, you know, to start the game, which makes no sense.

Yeah.

But we had the banana nanas. We had senior citizen dance team. You know, we had the mananas, a male cheerleading team. We had a banana band. I, I thought of, you know, putting all these things into a brand to make it nonstop entertainment.

But it was also, you had limitations back then because you could only do it in the beginning of the game, the end of the game, in the arena, you know, a stadium.

There you go.

Before the stadium, you know, before the game.

Yeah. We used to get fined, I mean, for playing music during the games. Wow.

But you didn't care.

No, we just wrote bigger, we just wrote more checks.

Wow.

I mean, it's, it's, it's—

So when did Savannah Bananas, the, the, the brand it is now, like, when did you realize I have to try this one night interscrimmage?

Yeah.

With each other.

Yeah.

And see what we can recreate because you weren't even thinking about that when you took over this team.

Yeah. Well, you're always thinking about plussing, you know, I think I learned from Walt Disney and he was obsessed. He said, you know, Disneyland's a living, breathing thing. It'll never be complete. We will always plus the show. And he called it a show, you know, performance. And you know, Disney's the kind of guy that, you know, literally they were at capacity at Disneyland 3, 4 years. And I mean, they were dominating in, in, uh, and he wanted to put a Christmas parade and he said it's gonna cost $350,000. And all the accountants, everyone in this business was like, no, Walt, you can't do this. We're already at capacity. Why would we spend another $350,000? It makes no sense. He goes, nah, we gotta give 'em a reason to want to come back. And that obsession, he goes, to continue to invest, to continue to put things in, he was always plussing the show. So yeah, we were selling out every single game. You know, we went from sleeping on an airbed and $30 a week grocery shopping to having a very healthy business. Successful.

But like you'd maxed out, you'd gotten to the top of the league of what you could make. Yeah. Talking about major baseball, 3 to 4 million a year.

Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe you can make a little more every year, but it's like, it kind of maxed out.

Then you, then you gotta take from your fans and you gotta, you can't, you gotta, it's incremental.

Uh-huh.

So then we, as we were watching, we kept thinking, how do we make it better for fans? How do you plus the show? How do you plus the show? So I wasn't thinking about how do we make this global or make this, you know, all over the country. I was thinking, how do we make it better?. And I just kept watching our fans, watching, watching. And this is what Walt Disney did better than anyone else. I mean, he literally put an apartment above the fire station at Disneyland just so he could walk the park. And Walt said, whenever I go on a ride, I'm always asking what's wrong with this thing and how it can be improved. And so I was like, all right, how do we improve this? How do we make it better? How do we make it better for fans? And I realized that even with our big show, players dancing, the celebrations, all the promotions, fans were still leaving games early. So we started taking pictures and videotaping. Every 30 minutes. First 5:30 when they get in, 6 o'clock, 6:30, 7 o'clock, 7:30. And I realized something at 9 o'clock, you'd have your first influx of fans no matter what. Even if we had a fireworks show or something at the end of the night, 9 o'clock, 2 hours in, fans would start leaving. Then 9:15, 9:30, you'd have a lot more. By 10 o'clock you'd have 50% of your crowd no matter what. That told me right there, there's a fundamental problem with the game of baseball.

It needs to be 2 hours.

I always say this before, it's like, you know, you go to a movie and it's like, how, you know, you go, oh, the movie was great. Yeah, I left in the middle. No one leaves a great movie in the middle. But baseball's, yeah, I had a good time, left in the 6th inning or so, you know, got out early. You should never create something where people want to leave early. So how do you create something that's so good they want more? And so I said, all right, let's look at all the parts of a baseball game that are too long, too slow, too boring. So I remember I wrote down and—

That's most of the game. Most of the game is too long, too slow, too boring.

Other than, you know, if you ask baseball traditionalists.

Unless you're watching the playoffs or something.

Yeah. 100%. And so I started writing down and what I'm so blown away by right now. So I started an idea book in 2018 and I realized if you want to have good ideas, you got to come up with more ideas. I mentioned to you earlier about the great podcast episode you had with Andy Grammer and about how many songs he wrote. He was just constantly writing songs and performing them out in the streets over and over and over again. Quantity leads to quality.. So I was like, I gotta have more ideas. So I started writing down all these ideas. And in 2018, you know, I was like, all right, what are all the boring parts of baseball? Mound visits, stepping out of the box, walks, bunting's boring. I just, all these things, I started just writing all these down. And then one of our big premises of everything is whatever's normal, do the exact opposite. No one gets excited about normal. When we first started in Savannah, we were doing normal social media, normal ads, normal radio, normal, all that. We're getting terrible results. So I wrote down all these ideas and I said, why don't we just try them? Just see what happens. And so the first time we went to a college, we went to my old school, Wofford College. And the coach said, yeah, we'll try this in practice. No one's there. We'll try. So we got rained out. So the first ever intentional banana ball game got rained out on. As I learned at my wedding, they say the rain is good luck. So I'll take that as good luck. So I went to my old other former coach at Lander.. And so we played with these guys. I said, guys, hey, we're playing a crazy game today. The goal is we just want you to have fun, have fun, enjoy it, let us know how it is.

But this was not inner squad. It's a different—

this is a different team.

We're testing it at a college and they're thinking we're trying to just play baseball.

What are we doing? Yes. We went to it, played 9 innings in 99 minutes. And the guys at the end said it's the most fun they've ever had playing. Wow. And there was, it was actually, there were a few girlfriends that like came in and they were like doing their homework as they go to practicing. And they put their homework down. They were obviously watching because it was just boom. There were walk-off hits. You know, you could walk off every inning. There was outs, it was fast. The pitchers were throwing every 6 seconds. It was just exciting. I was like, we got something here.

And so, yeah, in 2020, in the middle of COVID this was like a scrimmage game.

It was a scrimmage. No one knew about it.

Yeah.

Yeah. But you know, we filmed it. We were, we filmed it.

We knew that it was 20.

This is 2018.

Wow.

So this is, this was right after we met. And so then 2019, we just kept doing our thing. And finally, it was like 2020, COVID.

You keep rehearsing it or what?

Well, we just, I kept iterating. So it was like talking about ideas. We were still in a league. We were, you know, we're set in a contract. We can't get out of the league. All those things.

But you were trying to do a scrimmage every now and then.

Yeah. And so, so COVID happened and like, wow.

You know, and baseball shuts down.

Everything shuts down. And so we were allowed to have 1,000 fans, but we had to spread them all out. And I was like, all right, screw it.

Let's go. Let's try it.

And so we did it and it was chaos. I mean, the first, one of the, one of the first hitters, he walked, ended up being a home run because no one knew what to do with the ball. So a ball four sprint is you get ball four sprint, the hitter takes off full speed and the fielding team has to throw the ball to every guy in the field before it's live.

That's cool.

But they didn't know what to do at that point because it never happened before. So they're like throwing a throw in the center field. The guy's running around the bases like home run and everyone's like, what is happening? It's just chaos. But we played and the guys had fun and we realized a few things, a few rules iterations and we're like, okay, what if we go do this on the road one time? And then one city road war in 2021. And then sound didn't go out. There were so many issues. Fans were confused again, but they stayed till the end. And I was like, all right, there's something here. Let's do it further. Let's keep going. In 2022, we do 7 cities and then keep iterating. 2023, we did 33 around the country. Then we added new teams. At 24, our first major league stadium. 25, we started adding football stadiums and we build a league. And it's just the constant iteration, just like Walt. It's like plus and improve constantly. And, you know, I want to be the fastest learning organization.

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That makes me uncomfortable when you say that too. I hear that, you saw I look away. I just, I don't like thinking. I don't, that's not how I think.

Well, you could say, okay, $3 to $4 million to a billion-dollar brand that impacts, you know, How many people?

Yeah, I'm proud we played in front of 3.4 million fans this year. And, you know, we're impacting so many more online and social millions of people and billions. I love that. I want to bring joy to billions of people. That fires me up. That's a different thing.

You think Walt Disney was intimidated by the numbers? How much did he hate it?

Well, Walt hated talking about money. He hated it. He was, Roy, you handle all the money. I mean, he didn't want any. He said, money doesn't excite me. My ideas excite me. He was fascinated and like, he was terrible with money. He was like, ah, this movie Snow White, this'll cost a couple hundred thousand. It's cost millions. Or, you know, Disneyland, it's gonna be a couple million. It's 17 million. Like he was, because he told it, he told his team, it's like, you know, hey, I'll let you know when I'm done. Like, I'll let you know when I'm done how much it's gonna cost. We're innovating here. We're innovating. You know, the multi-plane camera, which was never invented and sound and the first, you know, animated with color, the full-length animated in Snow White. In Disneyland. I mean, he was constantly doing things that never happened before. The animatronics, are you kidding me? He was so far ahead of his time. How can you put a price tag on something that's never been done before? And luckily Roy, which deserves so much more credit than he, than he, he got, you know, he said, okay, we're gonna keep going. We're gonna keep going. And he found a way to keep the business stable enough when they were ups and downs. I mean, they were almost outta business numerous times. I mean, there were strikes, there was, it was, but Walt said, we're gonna keep going because it's best. It's best he believed in it. So when you ask me, how do I believe in it when I'm sleeping on an airbed? You know, I saw some, we bring joy, we bring fun, and we can see, we create something that people have never seen before, never experienced before. Every single night.

Wow.

It'll work. And I just, Walt has built in me this trait. It's in my DNA. I will never doubt anything. And doesn't mean we don't fail. We fail every step of the way, but we're gonna keep getting up and go to the next step.

Wow. So if COVID doesn't happen, where would you be? Do you think you would've eventually done this?

Oh yeah. Because in 2018 we, we tested it before. Oh, I was, I was ready. It was, how do we get outta the league? How do we, you know, our people in Savannah at first, you know, they were, they hated our name. They hated who we were. They hated what we were about until we actually delivered and we brought joy. They didn't want this. As Steve Jobs says, no one knows what they want until you show it to them. Mm-hmm. We hadn't shown them anything when at first, that's what, no reason why we sold 2 tickets. We're talking about there's gonna be dancing players and there's gonna be entertainment and banana-nanas. They hadn't seen it. They had every right not to believe in it. And so when I'm talking about this new game where fans are catching foul balls for outs and you know, there's nonstop celebrating and nonstop entertainment and there's trick plays and guys catching backflips, they're like, I don't get it. What are you talking about? As Bezos said, Jeff Bezos, you need, you need to be willing to be misunderstood. Anybody that innovated or truly invented something that's never been done before, they are misunderstood in the beginning. They are always misunderstood.

What's the thing you misunderstand about yourself still?

Hmm. It's a good question. Misunderstand about myself. I know I want to cut that back at you. Like, what are something you think that—

Well, I'd say that you're so passionate about the brand, the mission, fans first, not caring about the money, you know. And the experience of bringing joy to millions of people around the world.

Yeah.

And you've been going nonstop for what it seems like 5, 6 years since you did the first show, the first kind of live show. And it is only— obviously you've had lots of mistakes and challenges you've had to face, but you have been nonstop like a machine of innovating. It's got to be better. It's got to be bigger. It's got to be more fans, more Better for the fan. It's been nonstop for 5 or 6 years for you.

For 20 years, almost 20 years.

But since you launched this new version, it's been nonstop. And it has grown from an uncomfortable $3 million to a billion-dollar valuation. And you're getting offers left and right from every TV network deal. Players want to play. Now everyone understands it.

Not everyone.

Not everyone, but the fans understand it now.

The fans who have been there, yes.

Is there anything you misunderstand about yourself or you don't understand about yourself at where you currently are from where you were 5 years ago?

Yeah, it, it, it's tough. I think, you know, I'd have to go back. I think, you know, when you first start and, you know, you're trying to think about growing yourself and, and growing your own, you know, you want to get, think about everyone. They want to have a bigger promotion, bigger title. They want to be all this. And, you know, people that see me in a yellow tuxedo, you know, oh, he's just, you know, maybe he's about himself. He's got an ego. And, you know, what I've realized with this and inspired from P.T. Barnum back in the day, it was like, This actually is the, I believe is the best version of myself. Energy, fun, give permission to have people to have fun. Mm-hmm. You know how many owners are, they're dressed in their suits and they're up in the suite. Like I wanna be out with the fans having fun that says you can dress up, you can be a little silly, you can be goofy, you can let loose. You don't need to take yourself too seriously.

Mm-hmm.

I think, you know, you know, I think there's always a little bit of an imposter syndrome. You know, I'll tell you, when I came up to you in 2018, I was a little nervous. I was, you were dominating. I mean, you were showing up every week. A huge audience and making an impact. And I was like, he's probably looking at this guy like he's crazy. But I was like, this is me and I'm not gonna hide away from this. And it was, there were a lot of awkward, uncomfortable moments when you go into a different room in a bigger room with people that are accomplished. You know, I know there's the perception, who does this guy think he is? And so I think there's always a, you know, misunderstanding or, you know, people that look at me and, you know, we can't always just talk about the fans. He has to be about money. I mean, yeah, I wanna make sure we have a healthy business 'cause I wanna take care of our people.

Yeah.

But when I was sitting on the airbed, it was like, yeah, we gotta get out of this. But like I learned, and my wife, how to be okay with not having a lot.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, I think the people that get to the point where they have so much, you were asking before, when are you gonna fly private? I'm like, I don't know. I have my 2018 Honda Accord. I drive it. I'm fine with it.

Like, right.

It is what it is. Uh-huh. Um, so it's tough for me to ask that question cuz I guess I'm not, um, I heard someone say on a podcast recently, they're like, some of the greatest entrepreneurs, they aren't introspective. And which was really interesting to me.

I saw that too.

Yeah. And I, I don't, I don't remember the whole thesis, but I think introspection's more of like a modern day thing. Yes. Back in the day, you talk about Henry Ford back in the day and Rockefeller. It's not like Walt Disney was thinking, oh, I wonder how I'm being right now. He was just trying to create something that he loved and that gave him energy. I think everyone should just chase things that give them energy. What fires you up every day? And yeah, I think it's important to know who you are and what you stand for. But if you focus so much focus internally and not actually just focusing on actually doing things and doing things that fire you up. You might get stuck holding yourself back. And I don't ever want to hold myself back.

So you were 15 years then working in teams, smaller teams, until this kind of took off, right? Maybe, maybe you're playing in front of 3,000, 4,000 people.

Yeah, I got 4,000. Great night. It was a great night back in the day.

So what is it like going from 4,000 to 100,000 within a couple of years?

Yeah.

And what shifted within you energetically to be able to take on that energy? 4,000 being like, this is our biggest night of the year to 100,000 every week. How do you energetically hold that space and not feel like an imposter?

Yeah. It's hard. And we, you know, the first major league stadium, I'll never forget it. So this is a big jump for us. So we do a minor league stadium, 15,000, which was big. But then we went our first major league stadium. We went to Houston.

The big boys.

Yeah. Big boy arenas. Yep. And it was in 2024 and I remember it vividly. And I took our whole team and our staff up to the upper deck.

That's 2 years ago. That's not that long ago.

Yeah. 2023, right? Feels like decades ago. I know. So we took everyone to the upper deck, the furthest seat away. And now what people don't realize is, is we travel with 200+ people.

Wow.

You know, we get compared to the Globetrotters. And again, I have respect for them, but we are completely different in the sense we're in a league. Every game counts. We're doing 10 to 15 things every night. The Globetrotters travel with 20 to 30. We travel with 200. Now we have 3 tours going on, 6 teams, 150 to 200+ people. So we had 200 people at first Major League Stadium.. And everyone is, you know, big eye looking around like, what am I doing? Do we belong here? And they're like, what are we doing? And I said, guys, we're up in the upper deck. I said, everyone's expecting us to fail. We are too big for our britches. Everyone says, you know, you can do the small stadiums, but this is too big. And I go, I go, we're not going to fail. I go, we're going to find a way and we're going to do it the same way we've done it from day one. And it's one fan at a time. I go, we're right here in the upper deck. How are we going to make sure these people that are the furthest away are going to have the best experience? What's the difference between the people behind home plate and the people up here? What are we going to do differently? Remember our head coach, Tyler Gillum, who's been with us since 2018, is amazing, amazing individual. And he started writing thank you letters and signing them and putting them in different seats all throughout the upper deck. Then our players started doing it too. It's like, what can we do? Can we put a card up here or put something up here? How can we make sure we get up here in the middle of the game? And I said, I'm going to be up here. I'm going to spend 2 innings in the upper deck every single game. We're going to do it. Now, we put on a great show. Ironically, we did fail. Our ticket system shut down. It completely went out. Chaos ensued. So we put on a show, we delivered the show, but it's just chaos. And, but we got through it. We got through it and we got to the next major league stadium. But yeah, I think I knew I tried to put myself in those people's shoes all the way up there. And so when we go to 40,000 now to 100,000 seat stadiums, Which when you walk into 100,000-seat stadium, you know, I just, I can't believe that us, this little small college state summer team got to perform there. But I also know no one obsesses like we do about every single seat around that stadium. And so, you know, now if you come to one of our shows, you know, most people say you're going to a sporting event, 7 o'clock game. What time you come to the game? 6:30. You know me, I gotta get there early. There's some major league teams, 50% of their fans come after first pitch.

Wow..

So I said, all right, well, we gotta deliver a lot more. We gotta plus the experience. So one step at a time, we started doing a bigger pre-show and then we started adding a little bit to it. So now at a football stadium, 100,000, our show starts at 2 o'clock. We do a rope drop. The first thing you see when you come in, rope drop, we have all characters cast, we do a big opening number.

Really?

You come in, the first thing you see is our players. Our players greet you for the first hour. They sign autographs before the game, before the game, from 2 to 3 o'clock. Then from 3 to 4:30, we do a huge stage show.

2 to 3, the game's at 7.

Yeah. Players are signing. Wow. So players are signing.

People are there at 2 o'clock?

Thousands. Wow. So like a Texas A&M, 100,000. There were 45,000 people there 3 hours before the show. Wow. So we do a whole performance show, then we have a march and our players go through the crowd and we high-five every single fan. So we know who we play for. These people have come from all over the country. You know, as an athlete, often you're in your own world. How are you gonna win this game? But when you realize that all those people all around that came 5 hours before the game, 7 hours before the game, yeah, that stay an hour and a half after the game. That flew in from all over the country for that, and you either get to high-five them, you get to see them, you have a different sense of purpose.

Oh yeah.

Playing 100%. And so we know that. And so when I talk about winning the upper deck, we put ourselves in their shoes and we said, we're gonna get up here. And so we actually have activation stations. People don't realize we have all of our players, we have activation stations throughout 100,000-seat stadium where our cast and our players, this is your zone. This is where you're throwing beads. This is where you're throwing t-shirts. This is where you're getting up and doing selfies. This is where we're doing a sing-off.. And so it, I knew it was gonna be hard and we still, you know, some people we probably don't get to touch as much as we'd like to, but I knew if we just had to focus on it, like put ourselves in their shoes and do it and give them so much more than they expected, we'll continue to find a way.

Wow. It's interesting because when I got into kind of online business, I guess 16 years ago, 17, 18 years ago, I guess. I went to my first Cirque du Soleil show. Yes. And not to compare you guys with that.

No, I have a lot of respect for them, a lot of admiration. What year was this?

Probably 20— okay, 20, uh, 2009, probably. Vegas or Vegas. Okay. Yeah, I can't remember which one I saw, but I saw, I saw a bunch of them.

Oh yeah.

But I remember getting there, I don't know, 30, 60 minutes earlier or something, and the cast being out in the lobby and even out of the tickets area too. And I was like, and it made me apply what I learned from Cirque du Soleil into webinars, into online marketing, into live events where I was like, oh, and into the podcast as well, where I was like, oh, it's not about the show. The pre-show is the show. The pre-show is the show. Like our conversation out there for 30 whatever minutes, that is the show in my mind. And it's not, Obviously you got to make a great show too, but the show can be a thousand times better based on what happens before the show.

100%. You know what I mean? It's intentional. You set the tone. Yeah.

And so I was like, oh, how do you create that experience, that vibe, that energy, that joy before people enter your arena?

Yeah.

Whatever that arena is for you. And it seems like you guys are just—

Well, we've learned and you just, again, you put yourself in the shoes. I just, I'm in a world where I want to be entertained all the time. I want— I don't want to be bored. Like, I am so scared of boredom. I don't know what it is in my mind. I have this fear of boredom, a fear of settling, a fear of irrelevance that I want to have something going on. And so again, I don't need to go back to Walt Disney, but he's like, we're going to create a berm around Disneyland. But when you first come in, you're going to see the train, you're going to see the fly— the landscaping. Then you're going to go through this little tunnel and you're going to start to smell, and then you're going to start hearing sounds, and it's going to open up to Main Street. Then you're gonna have the castle over there. And it's just everything was intentional. And this is that, that's in many ways the pre-show.

It is pre-show.

No one has gone on a ride yet.

No one has experienced pre-show is the show.

That's exactly, exactly. So we think about that same, you know, we, you know, you got to do the unscalable, do the scalable too.

Yeah.

Yeah. People don't realize our first 7 years we called every single fan that bought a ticket and thanked them. Hundreds of thousands of fans. That's cool. Now during Christmas time, we'll get our players, we'll, we'll do surprises and do like, now we serve millions. It's kind of hard to do that, but yeah., but your pre-show, we send an email, what to expect when expecting, you know, we set the tone there. And then when they show up, you know, we're ready to go at 2 o'clock and then it's, and then your last impression leaves a lasting impression. Every night, every show I'm at, I will say again, your, your what? Your last impression leaves a lasting impression. And so like every night, no matter where I'm at, I will sign till the last fan leaves. And it is a full day. Who's there?

And you're at midnight, maybe it's like every ball.

Yeah. Some, yeah. If we're at 100,000 seats, it'll be 2, 3 hours after the game. And, and we, You know, we start rehearsal 7, 8 in the morning. We're going through all of our programming, our tech director. And it's, it's a—

this is why you're going to need a private jet in the future, because at midnight you're going to want to jump to the next city.

But if you want to be successful, you got to do what others won't do.

Of course.

And, and to me, I'm so grateful. I remember, you know, that kid who dreamed playing at Fenway Park and getting an opportunity. I remember the kid just hoped to meet a player. I remember such a foul ball or something. Yeah, ball. I remember sleeping on the airbed and having nothing.. And I think a lot of people, you know, business that become successful, if you haven't gone from starting from nothing and to get to that level, it's hard. It, it's very easy to take it for granted. Yeah. And just say, you know what, I don't need to do this anymore. I've made it. And I don't want that to ever happen. I want when I'm 70, 80 years old to still be at the end of the night, I want to be up at the upper deck with the fans singing with them, you know? And I think if myself, my wife and our team sets that tone, all of us will continue to do that. And so when people say we're a fad and you look at the graveyard of all the leagues that have failed over the years, there's hundreds. They start up, they fail. You know, I think a lot of people would put us that we're destined to fail because we're just this, you know, new kind of fad that's, you know, this quirky little thing. But they don't know our passion. They don't know our purpose. They don't know how we put ourselves in the fan's shoes every single day. And so, and our, how our obsession is so much different than trying to make money. We're trying to drive revenue. And so, I want to have this conversation in 50, 60 years when people say Banana Ball, it's just this fad, it's whatever. They said that back in the day because I think our obsession's going to continue to grow and our ability to plus the show and plus the experience. That's what fires me up.

Where does the fear of irrelevance come from?

Geez, you want to get— now we're going to go deep. This is right up your alley.

Why do you, why do you have a fear of being irrelevant or being bored or sitting still?

I mean, yeah, well, the bored is just kind of, I just enjoy feeling alive. I love feeling alive. But the relevance, I was the only child when I grew up and I didn't have a lot of friends when I was really young. And I remember, I mean, my dad would come home from work and we'd play and stuff and play baseball. But I'd say, Jesse, during the summer, what'd you do today? I'd say, I rode my bike to Alex's and then I went to Bobby's and I didn't, I didn't do that.

Really?

Yeah. It was, I, I didn't have a lot of, I, I, you know, again, I was, you know, there's, I'm not gonna make excuses. I just didn't have a lot of friends.

You just kind of like a quirky kid or you just didn't fit in?

I think I was, so what I learned was when I had opportunities around people to try to make the most of 'em. And so when I was around my, the, my teammates, I would try to, try to get like, hey, let's have fun, let's do this. And I started, so I started building friends, but like when I was young, I was just, you know, I just wasn't around a lot of people. I, I was in a neighborhood, there were no kids in it and I just, I didn't, I don't know, I wasn't great at it, but I learned 'cause I was, I didn't want to feel like I didn't matter, you know, like I was just, so I started really working hard to create attention, to get excitement. I mean, I, of course, I think I got 26 detentions in 7th grade. You know, I did, I did, I did anything to try to, were you like the joker kid then? Yeah. I joked. I was trying to have fun. I was just always trying to have fun. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I think what I realized is I felt alive when I felt seen, heard, and that I mattered. And so what the opposite of that is feeling irrelevant. And so when I think about now what we create, I want every single fan, everyone to feel loved, to feel seen, to feel heard. You know, my dad, who I have the closest relationship in the world with, and, you know, he didn't use the word love when I was a kid, so I never really received that.

He didn't say I love you.

He didn't say I love you. And now we say it every day. We have a different—

really?

But I didn't get that. And so, and you know, my birth mother wasn't in the picture as well. So I just didn't, I didn't, didn't have that. And so I think I've always searched for feeling that love. And so at the end of the night, being around fans, being around our team, coming back in and having our fans first talk with all of our closest people, I feel alive then because I feel a lot of love. I feel a lot of love of what we just did and how we did it together.. And so that feeling of irrelevance or feeling like you didn't do anything that matters. Yeah. That's, that's gonna be something that drives me. And I think I've channeled it to be a very positive, positive motivation.

Your mom wasn't around?

You know, my birth mother, I've had an amazing stepmother who's been tremendous in my life, but my, you know, my birth mother, you had some challenges and she, my parents got divorced when I was 8 years old. And so my dad, you know, was she around before then?

Before you were 8?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Sporadically or just emotionally not available.

I don't want it to, I mean, again, I don't want to go too much, but yeah, I think, you know, she did her best and, you know, my dad helped raise me. We had the bond of baseball and then amazingly my stepmother came in and we, you know, we built from there. But yeah, it was my dad. It was going to the park and playing every day. And so that was it. It was playing ball, me and him.

Wow.

And so when I got to take him, you know, to Fenway, our first game at Fenway, and I took him out on the field and we got to play catch at Fenway. That's, you know, that's, those are some moments that Field of Dreams right there. Well, I grew up wanting to play for the Red Sox. That was my dream. And so to be able to now, because of what we built with Banana Ball, to now sell our family park and be able to take my dad and take my son out there and play catch, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a full circle moment.

You have a video of that playing catch with him? Oh, you better believe I do.

Oh my God. I got, it was crazy. There were, there were fans on tours and they were coming to our games and they were up around and they were taking videos and they saw, you know, me playing catch and like, wow, it's pretty special.

That's cool, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. The biological mom's still in the picture.

You talk to her or she's—

yeah. You talk to her every now and then or here and there.

Yes.

Here and there. You're closer with your stepmom.

Oh yeah. She's, she's been tremendously supportive. She was the first one literally videotaping, you know, when I was pitching when I was 10 and 11 years old, she was filming all my games. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was special. Wow.

Do you feel like any of that? Relationship is also what drives you to want to be relevant or, or create a deeper love or deeper experience?

I think we all want to feel loved. We all want to feel loved to an extent. And I think that was it. I didn't understand love too much when I was a kid. It just wasn't, you know, my birth mother, she said it to me, but I didn't understand that as much. My dad didn't. So I just didn't understand it. It just wasn't part. And now, you know, I literally say it to my kids every day, numerous times a day. I just, I'm probably giving them what I always wanted. Yeah. You know, if you look deep into it. And so, uh, yeah, I think it's, I think what we've built and how I built this whole world, it's all built on spreading love. Love. And spreading joy. And so.

You know those moments when you're ordering everything to your house from groceries, gear, random things you didn't even realize you needed until the last minute? It just makes life a little easier. And now you can add internet to that list. Get same-day delivery for T-Mobile 5G Home Internet powered by DoorDash. No store visits, no waiting around for technician. It shows up, you plug it in, and you're online in about 15 minutes with one cord. T-Mobile has the fastest 5G home internet. For me, working from home on the podcast, that simplicity matters a lot. I'm on video calls, uploading episodes, researching guests, and sending emails. And when everything just works and I don't have to think about it, I stay focused on what actually matters. It fits right into my workflow and it keeps things moving throughout the day. Visit t-mobile.com/homeinternet to check availability and get your home internet delivered today. Same-day delivery for most internet-eligible customers. See if it's an option during checkout. Fastest according to Ookla Speedtest Intelligence data, second half 2025. All rights reserved. As a loyal listener of this show, you're always challenging yourself to grow, to be better, to keep learning, and Southern New Hampshire University can help. Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 career-focused degree programs online. Plus, Southern New Hampshire University has some of the lowest online tuition rates in the US. So balancing school, work, and life actually feels achievable and affordable too. Find your degree at snhu.edu/greatness. That's snhu.edu/greatness. What's your relationship like with your wife? Because I know she's obviously, she's every corner with you. She's been, you know, on the air mattresses with you going for this crazy dream. Baseball wasn't her first love, I'm assuming. It wasn't like, I want to go start a baseball team when I'm an adult, you know. She's really kind of supported you on this journey.

Yeah. Well, well, and yeah, she's supported everyone. She's the heart of our organization, of course, in many ways.

But what is your— and I know she does a lot of— you guys have foster kids. Yeah, I know. Every game she's a big part of giving back in a big way. How have you fallen in love with her more since you guys have been on this journey?

Yeah.

From taking over in 2015 to taking over and recreating and reinventing in 2020 to where it is now. How has your relationship with love or your wife evolved over the years with all the different levels and layers from adoption to having your own kid to giving back to the charities that you guys support?

We'll go back to, you know, 2015, we took over this team, we got married and we're taking over a brand new team. That's a huge venture, scary venture.. And when we got the phone call, we were outta money. The first thing she said, we need to sell our house. So we were living in Charlotte. Her whole family had moved down. So she grew up in New York, her whole family, her 3 brothers who she's extremely close with, her mother, her dad all live in Charlotte. And she's like, we gotta sell our house there and we gotta go into Savannah and be there full-time. So immediately she says, I'm here for you. Like, we're married. I'm gonna do this. Leave, you know, the family because we gotta take on this.

You had a house in Charlotte?

Yeah. Cause we still had the team in Gastonia, North Carolina. And then you guys did, yeah.

We were going, you were kind of going back and forth, going back and forth, but we need to get down there. He needs to be all in.

I had to be all in because we had nothing left. And so sold the house, sold the house, found an absolute— it was an old garage that was turned into a studio. We put an airbed there and it was so gross. Like it was, the floor was so nasty. Like we slept in our socks. Like you should never sleep in your socks. The only lunatics sleep in their socks. I would have probably upset some parents, but you gotta be crazy to sleep in your socks. And so we're sleeping in our socks because we don't know where we're gonna step on. You could never clean the floor because it was an old garage. It was brutal. And so we went through that and she was, she was there. And then during COVID we're down there and again, not around family, just trying to figure out how to get out of this. Our business, live entertainment business, just shut down all this just there. And it was amazing. At that point, she started learning about foster care and just studying. It's like 2020, 2020 in the middle of COVID She read the book, Everything Is Figureoutable. Wow.

And yeah.

And she said, uh, Jesse, there's 400,000 kids in the US that don't have a permanent home. We gotta do something. And she's like, will you, you know, join me in this? And I'm like, are you kidding me? You've supported me like crazy to come in down here with nothing. I go, I'm all in. She's like, will we become foster parents?

I go, in the middle of COVID I go, all right, let's try to launch this.

Like, again, we just started this big vision. We are like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. And so we started, we got our first call.

Why does she want to foster?

Because again, there's 400,000 kids in the US that don't have a permanent home. We gotta do something.

But where did that, where did that spark this? Her, her family, kids that don't have water, kids that don't have education.

Why family? Foster kids, her family. So she, her family was the one of the close-knit families. Her 3 brothers, they were just always together. You know, they went through challenges and everything, but they were always together. And she just realized the power of family. She's always been family, family, family. And then when she started learning about this, she's like, no one's talking about it. It's one of these things that's out there and just there's kids. And like she heard stories, she started listening to every podcast. She went deep, like, like how I go in Walt, she was learning everything about it. And so I went to, we went to like an online class. I was like, we gotta do it. And so, uh, yeah. So we said yes and we got the first call and a 2 and a half year old girl joined us and gashes and cuts on her all over.

And she was nonverbal and it was really 2 and a half, 2 and a half. And you guys had a son already?

We had a biological son who was a little, uh, 4 months older, 3 months older.

So 3 years old, roughly almost.

Yeah. Yeah. And so she joined us and immediately we learned, started learning what foster care is like, you know, the challenge of the DSS, they're understaffed, you know, being able to have visits every week. And then sometimes the parents don't show up, the kids are devastated, all this, just the emotions and the pain of it. It's like, wow. And so we went through it and then about a year later we get another call. We're going to go out on date night and we get a call from, uh, uh, there's a 6-day-old who's in the NICU who's battling every drug imaginable.

6-day-old.

6-day-old battling every drug imaginable in her system.

He did not bring her in.

So we took her in and she joined us and, and, you know, we didn't know what was gonna happen with her. And, you know, the goal in foster care is always reunification. You want to get the kids back to their family. That's the best thing. And that was the goal.

6 months or a year.

We always thought that's what, hey, we're just gonna be it and we're gonna be foster parents again and just help, help these kids in their journey when they need it the most. But, yeah, on Mother's Day, that year of our baby, that, or the other girl, 6-day-old who had us, We're traveling, this is active 2022. And so that's our final stop of our banana ball tour. 7 cities is all we did. And we're in Kansas City, it was unbelievable. We played another professional team, we beat them, it was covered on ESPN, it was unbelievable. And we're in and we're traveling and it's, you know, me and, uh, we got seats. It's Emily up there with Maverick, our son, and me and with Kenna and Addie. And, uh, Emily turns to me on her phone and she turns around and she's bawling her eyes out. It's Mother's Day. And she shows me the text and it was from the birth mother of the baby. And it said, I, you know, I'm thinking a lot of this on Mother's Day today. I couldn't imagine a better gift than for you to be the mother of my daughter.

And she just had this kid 6 days prior.

She had no, this is a full year later.

Okay.

So it's a full year later. Gotcha. So it was a full year later and she realized the maturity of that birth mother. And so at that point, we realized that now it was the goal to, you know, help her.

She said, I want you to be the mom.

I want you, I want you to be able to take care of the maturity of that. And so then Addie, you know, we went on a, on a path towards, uh, towards adoption. And then the same thing with Kenna, we went on a path towards adoption. So we adopted them on the same day, uh, in January of 2024. So they joined our life and, you know, we still continued foster care, but, uh, you know, doing respite fostering from now on from time to time, like for weekends when families needed, but we still realized there's more to do.. And so, yeah, Emily, we start talking, we gotta do something more. And so that's when I realized, well, what if we honor families every single night we're playing all over the country? We honor a family that's, you know, had 60 kids in their home or helped adopted 3 or helped 20 go back to reunification, whatever it is, make them the hero, celebrate them. And so we said, we might as well call, call it Bananas Foster. And so we came up with the name and we started doing it. And so now, yeah, it's been, to answer this long about question, it's like, I think we just has so much purpose when we're doing something that, you know, really matters. And I will always support her in this, in the family, and she will always support me with the business. And now we've brought those two together.

That's cool.

And so now with our family, literally those two worlds are together with everything we do. We have two that came outta foster care and a biological. We have the world, we have Bananas Foster, we have Banana Ball. Our worlds work together in doing something that gives us a lot of purpose and fulfillment. And so for me and Emily, it's just, it's a support system and it's very hard right now with three kids under 8 years old. It's extremely hard.

But does she travel to all the events?

She goes to a lot of them, but this year she's like, you know what, the kids right now, this season, they need me, need her. And so she stepped off a little bit, which was really hard for her. And again, I had to support her in that. And she came to me like a couple months, she was like, we gotta, we gotta get these kids to experience new things. And so she came up with World Schooling. And so literally we, we took the kids to Greece to experience that. So full service. And, and I flew there and then I fly back to a game and I'll fly there. And it's just, it's all part of, You know, uh, we're figuring this out, but when you have clarity on what matters, Emily right now is I'm gonna make sure this family is strong as we can. I'm gonna make sure I can do everything I can to keep the family and the business as strong as we can. And we just try to, to figure it out, man. It's hard.

Well, how has your relationship as a married couple evolved over the last 5 years with, again, you've taken on so much more. She's taken on so much more. You're, you're, you're pulled in a lot of directions. It's all exciting, but it's also a lot of time and energy. How has your definition of love evolved?

And there could be, there can be resentment different ways. Like, I'm like, you know, you're out having fun. Well, she's right now with the kids in Greece, experiences, and I was there for the first week, but I had to fly back for the ESPYs and do all these things. It's like, and then she's seen me, you know, play it, do all these things. And so there can be that. But, but what happens is, um, when you— it's how you view things is how you do things. I believe that more than anything. And so every night, uh, we send our roses and our, and our buds. So the roses is something great that happened during the day, and a bud is something that you're looking forward to. And so normally we'll FaceTime or call, but if we're in completely different time, which we are now, 10 hours different, you know, we'll text it to each other. And we're constantly sharing the good in the day. We're constantly sharing what we're looking forward to. And I believe that so much. So many people talk about all the negative things, and you see it all over social media. Emma's like, I love social media because all she gets is positive. That's what we look for. I mean, too, it's what you seek out. I love it. I'm not getting negative politics, I'm getting positive stuff. And so how do we keep the connection? You know, we really focus on the good. We talk about the joy. We don't hide away from things that are hard. We talk about it. But then when we get together, we really lean in. You know, when I went, was with Greece, the kids, I literally shut down work for a little bit. I was like, I'm going to be here. I'm going to be fully present.

Um, you have to miss a game or do you miss a game?

I miss games. We have 6 teams playing Lewis Howes.

I miss games every week. But who's running the production to make sure that your vision is being executed at the highest level without you there?

We have hundreds. I mean, so, so like we have show callers for every team.

Okay.

We have lead vice president of marketing. We have video, we have creative. We've, we've had a team that we've been working together, like a core team for 6, 7, 8 years. And so yeah, it might not be 100% at the level that I would see it, but if you get it 90% and you scale up, it's, yeah, you gotta keep learning and growing. So yeah. So I, I miss a lot of games. I miss, you know, more than sometimes I like, but if you're, if you're with your family and you're growing that together, I don't want my kids to— this is where I get— can get emotional, get tough for me— my kids to feel like, you know, Daddy's just at another game. And, you know, I remember when you're outside of Greece and, you know, Maverick goes, Daddy, when are you coming back? Because, you know, I planned was I was going in right when they came back as meet them. So, yeah, but they don't know this right now, but I plan to plan a surprise trip.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, so they'll surprise trip and I'm not telling them I'll turn my location services off for 12 hours and, and show up. And because those, those are the moments that really matter. And so I will miss more games to go be there for them. And so my kids can know that they do matter most.

Wow, man.

Yeah.

Because you're probably away from them a lot right now, right? Especially in the growth phase. But do you get to bring them with you also?

Yeah. So they, they like all the last few years they traveled like crazy, but when they travel with us, man, it's— we get one hotel room, we're all in a hotel room. We've got, you know, Addie's 4 now, but she's wild. Yeah, yeah. And Kenna and Maverick. And so, yeah, it's tough. And then, you know, the morning we start, we start rehearsals at 7, 8, 9 in the morning. We have our promo meetings, rehearsals, our tech director meetings. I mean, every show is a brand new show. We're not— this isn't, you know, I have so much respect for Broadway, so much respect for what they do, but they are executing the same show 8 times a week in the same location, in the same location. We're going to a brand new facility, brand new stadium, brand new video boards, brand new plaza set up, brand new everything with a brand new show. And with huge performances we've never done every single night. It is extremely hard. And so the time that we have to put in every week, like on Tuesdays today, like we spent all day creative. I spent 3 hours before this, a part of all of our OTT meetings, talking with the clowns on what they're going to do, talking with the bananas and the party animals. We had a host meeting talking about all our new promos, all of this because this is brand new for this weekend coming up. I love it, but it's a lot. So when the family travels, You know, they get some of their dad, but probably not as much as they should. And that hurts me. I still love it. The kids, Emily, this is how great Emily is. Jess will get naps at the end of the night when I'm done signing. The best feeling in the world at midnight, 11 o'clock, I come back, we're all having dinner and you know, Kendall will put on my yellow jacket. She'll put on my hat. She'll come over and gimme a big hug. It's those feelings that the kids get to be hard there for that. So we're trying our best, but it is hard.

My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation, and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. With the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. No quarterly activations, no categories to track, just unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. Think about those bigger everyday purchases— travel, groceries, things for the house— where afterward you realize, I could have earned cash back on that. That's the kind of opportunity that adds up over time. Visit usbank.com/smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. August is a great time to reset before the fall rush begins, and your closet is a good place to start. Quince makes timeless, high-quality essentials like ultra-soft organic cotton tees and premium Magnolian cashmere sweaters. They're versatile enough for a casual workday, then dinner out later that night. And my experience with Quince actually starts at home. Martha and I have their European linen duvet cover set, and we love how soft and breathable it feels, especially during the warmer months. The quality stood out right away, and it gives you a good sense of care that Quince puts into everything that they make. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for high quality, not brand markup. Upgrade your everyday. Go to quince.com/lewis for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's quince.com/lewis for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com/lewis. Yeah, my twins are 9 months now. Yeah. And I'm starting to see, you know, they're not talking yet. They're just, they're just starting to crawl. They're, they're saying some papa, mama, kinda. But every time I come back, whether from the office or on a trip, and they see me, they just light up.

Oh yeah.

It's gotta be crazy when they start talking.

Oh yeah.

It's gotta be the craziest thing when they can start interacting with you in a different way.

It's a different level of love. And you know what my biggest fear is?

What?

The day I come home and they don't run out. Ooh. Oh no. The day I come home and they're just still playing and it's not their dad's home. And so to make sure that doesn't happen, I have to make sure I'm there for them and I'm their best friend when I'm there.

Yeah.

And I'm their best friend. So their best friend is coming home. Wow. Because right now when I see them, they will sprint up and hug me and they won't let go. And I'll hold, I'll hold on until they let go.

You're like Disney.

There you go.

You're like Disney character, man.

Like Disney character until they let go. Wow. And so I'm still fortunate, you know, 8-year-old, 7-year-old, and a 4-year-old. I still have that. Wow. I don't want to lose that.

Gosh, man, that would suck. That would really be scary. I think it's kind of like the beginning. It's like the beginning of the end. It's like you're always trying to get back to that feeling and maybe when they're 20, they're not going to do that. I mean, it's evolving, but you don't want them to have lose the spark in their eye when they see—

when they're excited. And it's because, and the key for that is when you are there, are you there? Are you there with them? You know, I try whenever I'm with them, if they ask me something, I say yes. If I'm exhausted and they want to play a game, which is not the most fun game, I say, I try to say yes. And, uh, you know, a lot of times when we come home, we have a pool in the backyard and, you know, I'll, I'll just jump in my full clothes. Like I'll have pants on, I'll have a shirt on. I'll just jump on because like they're in the pool or we're getting like, I'm going, let's go. They come out, run, dad, we're going swimming. Let's go. And you just, those are the moments. And I think about the moments, like everything I do, everything we do is all about moments, creating moments to feel alive. You know, I think now more than ever, AI technology, you think about this connectivity that's happening in the world and everyone's, you know, connected in their own world, but it's the shared moments, the shared experiences. It's the human to human connection. I am betting all in on that. And so we gotta be able to do it the best with our family and make sure that we provide those. And so I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that in 10, 15 years, they remember the time that dad's jumping in the pool with them and they're creating these moments. And, you know, dad's dancing in the middle of the night in places they never imagined, like with them. That's what I think they're gonna remember. Because when I was a kid, I remember the moments playing catch with my dad. I remember the moments playing until, you know, literally it was almost dark and you couldn't see, but we were still out there hitting. It's those moments and, you know, going to the Disney trip and just feeling things with it. That's, that's what I'm, that's what I'm working on.

Do you feel like you're a different person in the yellow suit versus outside of the yellow suit? Like, do you put on a different identity almost?

It's a good question. Yeah. It's kind of the alter ego mindset. Yeah. I mean, I'm a dad, you know, I'm a dad when I'm, when I'm off, like this is usually when I'm working. So when I'm in this and I'm going, I'm with you, I'm at stadiums, I'm in this.

When you're doing business meetings, you're in this too.

Oh yeah.

I'm pretty much every day.

You're in this every day that I'm working weekends. But when I'm with the kid or from Greece, I'm like, no, I'm a dad.

Unless you're at a game on a weekend. But yeah.

Yes. Weekends. If there's not a game in the fall and the winter. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is me. And again, after a game when I'm coming from signing and the kids are there, I can go into dad mode as well. But no, I mean, This is me, man. I just like, I like bringing energy. I like having fun. I like bringing joy.

And do you feel like you have more confidence when you're in this outfit than when you're in normal clothes?

That's a good question. People would say like, yeah, you would say no. I sometimes I could actually less because if I get into a room that's a little different and like, you know, I don't really think about that, but it's not.

Is there anything that switches on though?

Like when you button up jacket, hat on a show night, you better believe it on a show night. So like, I'll be in— if I'm like, all right, it's time to meet the fans, let's do this. And so like, there's a switch when we do our march, you know, at 4:15 and we know there's 30, 40, 50,000 people outside. It's good. Hours. We got our band playing, bands playing the music. Everyone's hyped up. We're jumping around. I mean, we played— they played— we're bouncing in Detroit. We're doing like— it's crazy. Like, people see it in videos, people like, what? Like, that gets me fired up because then when you're going through the crowd— and that we do a march that goes all the way around the stadium. There's just fans lined and you're feeling this. I'm like, are you kidding me? I can't imagine, you know, how the Beatles felt back in the day or Michael Jackson. But I'll tell you, feeling 20, 30, 40,000 going through and every time you get close to their yelling and screaming and yelling your names of myself and our players, man, how could you get better? Perfect. Like, let's go. We're going to put on a show and we owe it to them. They're sitting out here in the sun for 3 hours. We gotta give 'em something that's unbelievable. That fires me up. And that's why even when I'm tired at the end of the night, even after a tough show where we make mistakes, if things don't go our way, I will go out there and I'll sign for them because they showed up for us. We need to show up for them. And that's what fires me up. And that, that starts at the top. You know, once companies get bought by shareholders and you know, they get investors, private equity, that all changes. They try to make more money from the top. You're not thinking about how do you care about that one fan, that single mom that showed up with their kid that been waiting for 4 years on the lottery list, the waitlist to get tickets. Tickets and they show up that one night, they flew from all over to get there. They deserve something special. They earn the best of you.

I know you've been asked this a lot about would you ever sell or something like that? What would it take for you? Would there ever be a world where you'd sell, go public, or take a minority sale? Like let someone buy a piece of it?

Never.

Never. What would it, what would have to happen?

There's nothing. There's nothing. And again, like, I know that's crazy and people will say that's BS because, well, they're playing on a different system. They're playing a different game.

They're playing for money.

They're playing for money. You know, we're fortunate. We built our business to be healthy. We're healthy. We're able to take care of our people at a level that I never even imagined. But like, I love this so much. There's a different purpose. There's a joy. We show up every day. I get to do what I love.. And so does hundreds of people. When you see the joy of our staff, you watch some of our, our sideline staff, they're dancing throughout the game. They're having fun. How you get to dance on your job and just have fun and be with people that appreciate you. And so we sell it. What happens? All that changes. Their goals change. They wanna make money. They will take away all the things that really matter to our team and matter to our fans, trying to make a little bit more money. You'll start adding sponsorships everywhere, doing TV rights. Hey, Jesse, there's no reason you're doing— you're paying everyone's taxes. Everyone charges taxes. Just, just do that. No, no, you just charge shipping, Jesse. Everyone charges shipping. Just do it. No ticket fees, convenience fees. Just do it. Hey, it doesn't matter. People, the fans are used to it. Just do it. They keep saying that over and over again because it's hundreds of millions of dollars. But it's not what's best for fans. You want your people to be fired up every day for who they work for and what they stand for. And our business is fans first entertainment. That's who we are. Mm-hmm. We live by that decision. As soon as you start making decisions that aren't for your fans, mm-hmm, you lose all that. You lose the people that help build this from nothing, from selling 2 tickets. And so the, you lose the mission, you lose the, the mission, the purpose, the drive, everything. And it happens. Look at the amount of companies that have gone private equity and they change. Mm-hmm. An unbelievable book, Incorruptible by Eric Ries. He shared it. He shared all these companies. It's, you can just look at it. They were this company and then they sold and this is what happened. There's very few, there's very few out there. And so I just, there's not one model in my world. I hope that I can have this till the day I die. I hope our family, I hope the people that understand what matters the most, I want to put some kind of structure that no matter what you do, you have to do it for the fans. I want to figure out that I'll probably try to lock it up in a crazy way to keep control. So someone, whoever does try to say, you know, well, just, hey, there's $100 million here. I don't care.

Mm-hmm.

Keep us healthy. But if you run a business for the right reasons and do the right things, your fans will repay you. And our fans have taken care of us more than you imagined.

Mm-hmm.

The merchandise, the tickets. We have a waitlist that's now approaching 5 million. Wow. Where can you have that in the world?

Let's go.

That's amazing. And so like, that's, that's what fires me up. I know it's like crazy. You sound like, I know people say like, do this. You're not real. Like, that's not real. And I'm like, I was sleeping on an air bed with nothing. I could, we were good.

It was so interesting because I, I lived in a 2-bedroom apartment. Yeah. Until 3 years ago. Mm-hmm. You know, and until I hit 40, I was, I mean, I was in a studio and a 1-bedroom apartment and then 2-bedroom apartment for like, I don't know, 12 or 13 years. And I was happy. I didn't need more than a 2-bedroom apartment. Yeah. 100%. I was pretty, pretty happy. Like I didn't need more space or this.

You're sometimes happier with less. Our place that we have right now, it's a little one apartment. The more you, the more you own, the more it owns you. And so I love like, just like, hey, this is what we have. And again, like, as I mentioned before, like, look at the graveyard of past leagues that have failed. The ABA, you know, they had Dr. J, they had the three-point line, they had everything. The World Hockey Association, you had Brett Hull, Wayne Gretzky. You look at the XFL, the USFL, you know, they had, they had, uh, You know, Steve Young and Jim Kelly, World Team Tennis, Billy Jean, they had all these, all these competitor leagues, but they were playing the same game. They were competing on the same thing and they were chasing sponsors, TV rights. They weren't obsessed about creating fans and creating something brand new and special. And you know, I, I think about that, you know, and one, you could just keep going all the leagues over the last 30, 40, 50 years.

Isn't LIV going out of business?

Now too. Yes. I mean, I mean, it's arena football and they got more recent, like all these, like a Lib and all these, they put all the resources into it.

Oh yeah.

But they're doing it for different reasons.

Mm-hmm.

When you obsess over the right reasons and do it for the fans and build something truly special, you can be unstoppable.

Mm-hmm.

And you can be an enduring company. And so that's where when people say you wanna sell out or you wanna do this, like just study history.

Yeah.

Study history. Look at everyone else and what they've done.

With everything you studied around Walt Disney, What do you think Walt would think about where his vision is at today? They've had some, obviously some amazing CEOs that we know. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, but also they've gone through some phases where they probably made a lot of mistakes. Yeah. Where do you think he, do you think he would be proud of what Disney has become? Or what do you think if Walt was around today that he would be saying, guys, that's a loaded question, guys, we're missing this. We, we've gotta do more of this. Like, what do you think that his original vision that he would be more obsessed about? Than anything today that would take Disney to a whole new level?

Yeah, well, again, you gotta look at the history of Disney. So obviously they had 20 or 30 extremely challenging years after Walt went down. Everyone said, what would Walt do? And they weren't actually just doing things and they were just kind of working on their past. And Walt always said, you can't top pigs with pigs. 'Cause they, you know, did the first Three Little Pigs and they tried to do another one. And he was always against sequels, which is ironic 'cause now Disney's doing tons of sequels, but they're successful.

So they're crushing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Things change.

Yeah.

Um, and then, then Mike Eisner came in and Mike, boy, when he started, he went at it. He was so innovative. He started building new parks. He started, you know, focusing on animation. He started focusing on creating and he did some things that didn't work, but he was innovating and trying things and experimenting. I mean, he was made to say he was the next Walt and boy, he did it for a while. And then there was challenge. There was some turmoil and stagnant. And then Iger came in and Iger said, you know what? We're missing animation. What's our last? It's been years since we have it. And it's like, all right, we gotta find it. Pixar, Marvel starts bringing it in and then starts creating new and completely revitalized Disney Animation and Frozen and everything they did. It comes to a different level. Disney has amazing years. And then they had a couple challenging years during COVID and everything else. And, um, and now they're back on creative. You know, Josh D'Amaro, I think, is a tremendous lead for them because he is going to be obsessed on creative. That's where he comes from.

And so when you look at Walt back in the day, and who cares about the fans. Well, he, he would walk the parks every day, Josh. Yeah. And shake people's hand and be like, what is it that we're missing? How do we make it better for you?

He's obsessing about that constantly. So if you look at, you know, look, his, his first shareholder call, for instance, he, he used the word fans like over 10 times.

Wow.

And I told him this, I said, I said, Josh, I go, that's how you're gonna be different than anyone else. 'Cause everyone's to also talk about their clients, their customers, their product. You're talking about your fans. No, no matter what happens with AI, no matter what happens with all this things, You know, when everyone's chasing customers, customers are transactional. Mm-hmm. They come and go, but fans never leave.

Mm-hmm.

There's something different about fans and especially Disney fans. But like, I have fans that get tattoos of every one of our teams. And he, and one guy came, he is like, Jesse, you gotta stop adding teams. I go, I go, that's a, that's a you problem, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

But, uh, you know, again, there's a difference between a lot of fans. So to answer your question, I, I think, I think Walt, if you could look back, what, what did Walt wanna do? He wanted to keep creating. He wanted to innovate. He wanted to keep moving forward, opening new doors, he would say. If you look at what Disney has done, the amount of new theme parks, the amount of new animation, the amount of new movies overall in a scheme of things, how could Walt not be proud of it? Now, I think when you look at some of the challenges that they have, you know, pricing, you know, I mean, Walt is quite— it is. But, you know, again, there's demand for it. And as they increase the price, their attendance was going up. I mean, there was— when they started doing, they were realizing and the value they put so put so much into it. You can't just charge nothing.

So they also have to make money because they are, they're a public company, they have shareholders now. So they're a different model. They have to, have to, we have to respond every quarter to people.

This is one of the reasons why you go back to me, why I will never sell and I'll never be public. I work for the fans. And so what Josh and the team and all the CEOs have that challenge is every 3 months, they gotta report to the shareholders. How are they growing revenue? So how, not how are they growing fans? That's not the question.

How can they do both? How can they—

they do like, so like, I mean, they're, they're investing what, $60 billion on new enhancements and parks, adding new cruise ships. They're adding all these new experiences.

And, you know, how can anyone, not even Disney, but how can any business owner, entrepreneur, CEO think, yeah, I need to think about revenue because you need to.

Yeah.

They're not a full owner like you. They've got other people that are invested and they've got to make a return.

Yeah.

How can they think about financial growth, but also fan growth?

Well, it goes hand in hand. You know, the, the, the thing is like every day we're constantly trying to think, how can we provide something that's unforgettable for fans? And then how can we continue to provide new products, new services, new experiences? So yes, we're playing one game, but you know, we obsess over our merchandise, which we do all in-house. We obsess over our team, Jared and Corey and the team. I mean, they're obsessed and we are coming up with new things and we, Do it all in-house. We're building our own pro— everything. And so like, that's exciting for us. When we think about, you know, we're playing at football stadiums, we were selling out cruise ships, which makes no sense. But again, constraints foster creativity. We had to learn 5 days on how can we entertain for 5 straight days about playing an animal. Great constraint for us. And so we added that to Pants and our fans loved it. And that was a whole nother level. Like you can't sell a cruise ship here yet. We did like eat all the fees and we made it so it's very minimal profit, but like That was a new service. So what are these new services that we can build? The banana ball universe. You know, where could we, could we play at beaches, aircraft carriers? Could we do new innovative games at football stadiums people never seen before? New, you know, all these ideas that we think about constantly, which is a whole new thing that can, if you do it well, it'll drive fans. It'll also drive revenue. Every day we're looking at how can we serve more fans? A few years ago, we sold only 100,000 tickets. Then we went to $500,000.

The whole year.

The whole year. Then we went to $500,000 in 2023, then $1 million in 2024, then $2.2 million in 2025. Now $3.4 million in 2026.

Already in the first half?

Yeah. The whole year. The whole season sold out. So yeah. Yeah.

$3.4 million.

$3.4 million. But next year we'll go to $4, but it's gonna be hard. So what are we gonna have to do? Biggest challenge, 'cause you have so many teams, they're maxing out their games. They're selling out football stadiums. We're selling out everywhere we go. So it's going to be hard. And our team knows this. So where do we have to look? Do you look international? Do you look at new opportunities? Do you look at different seasons to play? You have to look at all these other things on when you can provide something for fans that fans want. That's a great challenge. It's very hard. You know, WWE, they maxed out at 2.5 million fans one year.

That was it.

Tickets sold. Tickets sold. So what do they have to do? They got to start doing more TV rights, sell more sponsorship. That's the only way they can really grow their business because they maxed out on how many fans they can MLB did 80 million fans 15 years ago. They're around 70, 72 now. They maxed out. So what do you gotta do? Hire VP rights, hire sponsorship, all that.

More expensive merch. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We gotta find out how to serve more fans. That's a hard proposition because every single league maxes out.

And your ticket prices are like very minimal.

They're like $40, $50, and $60 with no ticket fees, no convenience fees.

That's it. Yeah. $60 is the most you can spend.

And that's the, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, I mean, we have a VIP package that's more and we're, and we're gonna, and to answer your question, we're gonna offer more of those because fans want those.

The VIP.

Oh yeah. But we're still gonna keep that low, low price, but we're gonna offer more of those cuz fans, we're, fans are craving for those. Those, the first tickets we sell are the $100, $125 tickets, the backstage tickets. They go faster than anything else cuz people want that. So we have to offer more of that.

So you offer more or do you increase the price?

We try to go, and when do you increase the price? That's the biggest challenge. We try to go many perennial, we're going about 3+ years without raising prices, which I'm proud of. And then we do a very small and I always fight back with our team. I was like, how do we not? And wow. You know, that's a constant challenge.

But then you have a million people on a waitlist still.

5 million.

Or 5 million that can't go to a game.

Correct. So what back in the day Eisner would say, well, just charge more. And I think that makes sense.

Supply and demand.

Supply and demand, do that. But like, I don't feel good about that. I'm that fan, that single mom, that family that's been waiting forever. Like, why? Just because you're successful now, you gotta charge more? We try to picture a fan with us. Would a fan want that? Now, we have to at some point, you know, we might have to do a little bit here and there. We've done it throughout the 5, 10 bucks here. Yeah, you have to at some point, just because of as much as we fight back, you know, costs continue to grow and we want to make sure we take care of our players and take care of our—

And your expenses are going to grow.

And so, yeah, my point is every other league, what they have to do is they got to find revenue on how to extract value from the fans. They got to extract ads, sponsors, TV rights, merch, everything. They got to extract. What we gotta figure out is how to serve more fans and how to do it in a unique way. So what the challenge is, yeah. So you gotta look at all other top opportunities throughout a year or international or at different venues to serve more fans. And that's a hard, hard challenge. And I love it. It fires me up because it's very, very difficult. But when our whole team's in on it, we're gonna find a way. And so we'll go to 4 million, maybe we'll go to 5 million, maybe we'll start doing international.

Let me ask you this question. In 2 years, if you had to sell 10 million tickets, yeah. By 2028 in 1 year without raising the price, how would you do it?

I wouldn't do it. And here's why. Because you would dilute your product. You'd water down. So what happens is, so we have 6 teams now and I'm proud of these shows. They've sold out everywhere, but they're not at the level that the Bananas, we built that for 11 years. And so they're getting a bear— Yeah. But the Party Animals, they're selling out major league stadiums without the Bananas. Wow. They have more followers.

Who do they play against then?

Well, we've got the Firefighters, the Tailgaters, the Coconuts, and the Clowns. We got 6 teams in Elite.

They play those teams. They play you guys too.

Yeah. It's a league. We play a 60-game schedule. So the question would be, if you try to go to 10 million in 2 years, what you would have to do is you would have to dilute and you'd take away your focus and you'd water down. You'd have to add some more teams. You'd have to play at bigger venues.

The product would be worse. Yeah.

Yeah. I would not do that. Oh. You know, you look at Costco, you look at Chick-fil-A, you look at some of these companies that have grown, You know, they're very strategic. They make sure when they go, they're going to do it the best possible for their customers.

So you're not trying to get to that many.

No, we'll eventually, I believe we're going to create a billion fans. But I'm not saying we're going to do it in 2, 3, 4, 5 years. I want to try to do it in 100 years. That excites me. I like doing it. Yeah. Yes. To go from 100,000 to 3 million in 5 years is crazy. All right. It's crazy. But we're not going to try to go jump to 10 million. We'll probably do 4 and then maybe we'll find a way to get 5 and then we'll start over here in this country and we'll do this over here. Like that fires me up because it's really hard and it's a way to build something that you can make sure the fans get a great show and a great experience. And if you go too fast, most companies, Boston Market, Quiznos, I could keep going. There's a huge list of all the companies like, we got something good, let's go. And then quality goes down. They try to do too much. Boston Market tried to serve all these other things. They just wanted the chicken. Stay Boston chicken. You probably would've been more successful. Do one thing, do it better than anyone else.

Sweet potato at Boston Market.

Sweet potato. Yeah. You had that.

That's pretty good. Yeah.

But, but, but, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I think that's the mindset. So, so I think the question is continue growing fans every year without taking away from the fan experience.

Wow. So you're not trying to grow as fast as you can?

No, I just want, I want to, I want to continue to create fans and make sure we grow and stay healthy. I want to make sure I take care of everybody. I want our players to continue to pay more, our staff to be able to lay more. Like the average bonus for our front office staff is like $30,000 to $40,000. Like that's just everybody. Like that's from when you start, like that's our average bonus or something like That makes me happy. I want to continue. We have to continue to do that. So we have to continue to serve more fans.

Wow. What's your biggest internal challenge with all the success you've had?

The standard of the show and the experience. So I think that's the biggest challenge.

Because when it's smaller and—

I'm everywhere. We're everywhere.

You can do it all. You can be there at each game, but now it's so many moving parts.

So look at Walt. So I'll go back to Walt. He spent 3 years on Snow White, 3 years obsessed, one project, and they had so much excitement. Then they went to, they went to Pinocchio, they went to Fantasia. They had, they had 3 movies going on at once and all those, you know, while now they've, you know, critically acclaimed, but they all did not succeed. They actually lost money. They were failed. He couldn't put his whole focus in it. And then when Walt solely focused on Disneyland every single day, he was walking it, he was setting up, he was visioning it. Focus is everything. And so when people say, why don't you grow? So it's like, we've learned this going from 1 team to 6 teams is hard. And so I think that's the one thing that internally I just try to, how do we make sure the show and the experience at the highest level? And we're going to have to be very strategic.

How are you going to keep your focus when you're only going to expand though? You have so many cool projects happening and so many ideas and you're creative and you're writing down 100 ideas.

You sound like my wife right now, by the way. She asked this question. She's like, sir, how are you going to do it? There.

You got a cruise ship here and you got 30 games over here and you got these teams and this and project, ah, Disney. And it's like you have so many cool— I'm on the ESPYs now. I'm doing this thing. I'm doing this project.

This is what we got to do. How many people on your team right now?

We've got 10 full-time, but we got about 30 that are doing side freelancers.

You build your team.

Yeah.

You just started. Tell me your first podcast. What was it?

Me and Robert Greene. Yeah. Yeah.

It's two. Yeah. And you were just starting.

That was just it.

It was just it.

And so the iPhone. Yeah.

And so now you built your team and they've been, I mean, just my time here, it's a different level.. So like I have to spend as much time as I can with the core people that can have the most impact on each show. Yeah. And I have to do that and we have to obsess and I have to not be afraid to coach when it's hard.

Mm-hmm.

Hey, like, you know, we were at the ESPYs and there were certain things that were missed.

Like, yeah, yeah.

There were, it was like, it was missed and like our team delivered. I was so proud of that.

Yeah.

But there were cameras.

You guys miss it, but not everyone else misses it.

Well, no. Yeah.

Yeah.

Was that like camera shots and details and things? Not even out of our control. So this is one of the reasons why Lewis is like, I think you've learned this here. You can control everything.

Yeah.

People like, oh, you're a control freak. That's not a bad thing when you can control everything. We control our tickets, our merchandise, our show, our experience.

It's about a product.

Deal points. Because we care at a different level. Yeah. And we obsess over it. And so that's why I gotta make sure when we go to other places, we can't lose control. If we lose control, we're in trouble. So you got me going today, man.

What do you think will be your biggest downfall if you do what? Or if you don't, if you don't do what?

Yeah, it'd be, it'd be the, it would be taking an opportunity for the wrong reasons. So again, going against your values, going against your values, you know, as like I said, what Roy said when, when, what if it's such a big opportunity?

What if it's like, man, this is a big number. This is something I never thought I could imagine.

Yeah. It was, well, with Steve Jobs with Jony Ive, you know, his creative director and he said, you know, focus is when you wake up and you so badly want to do something. And you're willing to say no. Gosh, that's, that's, that's crazy. He, he is like, there were so many things that Apple had the opportunity to do, but if you look at what they did, they would, they're, hey, for 2 years I'm gonna focus on, you know, the, the iPod for 2 years. Now I'm gonna focus on the iPhone 3 years along. Like they would spend just constant, you know, they innovated more than us, but they spent obsessive focus for years on one main product. They had their other ones going, but their A-team, their best of their best was only focusing on one thing.. And so yes, we could get the biggest opportunity. We have, we've got some crazy opportunities. I could run and say yes to it. And then what happens to the rest of it? And so, you know, where your focus goes, what does Tony Robbins say? Where your energy goes, your focus goes, something like that.

And so, yeah, where your focus, where attention goes, your energy goes or something like that. Something like that. Yeah.

It makes sense in my head. But I mean, yeah, that's, that's the downfall would be we take something like, you know, we have some movies coming up, we have some ideas, we have some things that we're working on and some shows and I have to remember that, hey, keep the main thing, the main thing. And I believe we can be the best in the world, creating the greatest show and greatest live experience than any other sport. And so I got to remember to keep that the main thing. That's what drives us, all of us, everything we do.

What's your 3 favorite baseball movies? Ooh.

Ooh. That's good. Ooh, that's such a tough question because I'm going to get criticism on that one. Just what comes to your mind. Yeah. What comes to mind? I mean, you go, you go back to The Sandlot was obviously— Sandlot, just, and again, I've been able to connect with those guys. And we've had Patrick Reiner with us, the great Hambino. He's amazing.

Oh man.

And so, yeah, that was, that's a great movie. You know what one that I watched like religiously, which no one will ever pick as one of the greatest baseball movies, For Love of the Game with Kevin Costner. I was just obsessed with that one because I was a pitcher. But I mean, yeah, I mean, Field of Dreams, the moment with the dad is special. Bull Durham was so funny. There are moments, I mean, Major League, they're, geez, I'm listing literally all the baseball movies. Top 3. What am I missing?

What's your— what's a movie that inspires you the most with the vision that you have? What's a movie that you watch, whether it be now or when you're a kid, that you're like, this, this feels like me, what I'm going after.

Inspires me the most.

The Greatest Showman or just—

yeah, I mean, I love Greatest Showman because what they're doing, but I don't know if it's the most inspiring movie.

Um, Rocky. I don't know. What's your—

yeah, I mean, again, I, it's so crazy, Lewis, and I mean this, I am so focused on what we're doing and even my family in the business that like, I, I'm not, my mind doesn't go to movies. Like I, the realest reason when I saw was Michael and Michael Jackson.

What'd you think of that?

There was a lot more to be told. Of course, a lot more to be told. As someone, I studied Michael, I was obsessed with Michael as a kid. One of the greatest performers of all time.

You perform Michael Jackson a lot. I have, you have like all these videos of you dancing.

You, that's bad that you know that, but yes, I've done some.

I've seen those videos.

I was obsessed with I go, great sport. I mean, I think, you know, there was moments in there. He goes, he goes, you know, if you, if you see Haley's Comet every year, it won't matter anymore.

It's not special, right?

Not special. And so I think about that often. I think about a lot of those things. And he goes, I wanna be the best. I wanna sell this. I wanna, you know, I remember seeing a, a documentary about Chris Martin and Coldplay when he was a kid. He was young. He's like, we're gonna sell out the biggest stadiums in the world. He was like, just his band just started. I love people. I saw that. That go out and say what they're gonna do and they dream big and they go out and do it. And so like, Yeah, you know, Michael and some of those documentaries. I just— I love that. When you're at work, you never know when you'll be interrupted. But with the Dell Pro powered by Intel Core Ultra with vPro, no matter what distracts you, your laptop won't. It's battery optimized for the way you work with built-in intelligence that quiets distractions when you need to focus.

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Dell.com/dell-pro. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We've talked about BetterHelp on this podcast for a long time because taking care of your mind is just as important as taking care of every other part of your life. You've heard about therapy with BetterHelp, but do you know how much people love it when they actually use it? See for yourself. Check out amazing customer reviews updated every day at betterhelp.com/reviews. You'll find hundreds of people sharing how much BetterHelp has helped them. What stands out to me is how consistently people talk about their experience. BetterHelp has an average live therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client session reviews. It's no wonder more than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally. If you've been thinking about therapy but haven't known where to start, BetterHelp makes it easy to get started. Just answer a few questions and get matched with a therapist, and you can feel confident knowing BetterHelp therapists have at least 3 years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com/greatness. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com/greatness. What was it about Michael Jackson? Obviously he's got a, you know, interesting past too, but what was it about him as a performer that inspired you so much to be obsessed about him as a performer?

Well, watch This Is It or watch, uh, MJ the Musical, uh, on Broadway, which is great. It's just talking about his tour. It was such an obsession over every moment, every beat, everything that comes in, every sound effect, every everything. And even right before he died, he was challenged with a lot of medical issues. You see that tour? He's like, no, we got to hit it here. No, right here. We have to hit here. It was every moment. And I watched that. You know, I've been fortunate to work with Pasek and Paul, the writers of The Greatest Showman, and I've been able to sit in the room with them and the obsession over every syllable, every piece. I mean, we've been, We've been writing together. We're writing songs.

Really?

Unbelievable. And we just released our first song, Show Starts Now. And it's— That's cool. But when you're in rooms with people like Michael, Patrick, and Paul, Mandy Moore, choreographer who did the Taylor Swift tour, did La La Land and danced with her, it's every single detail matters. The greatest performers, the greatest achievers ever, they have that same thing in common. And so I think Michael was probably the best at it. And so when you watch a tour, there was a reason why people were fainting. Like it was just everything was perfection. How he'd come up on the toaster lift, how he would stand there for 2 minutes like he did during the Super Bowl.

2 minutes at the—

yeah, just the glass. And he's waiting because he understands he's building.

I love that video of the producer behind the scenes who's like, come on, Michael, come on, Michael, let's do it.

And he's, and he knows this, he's sizzling. And because he's feeling the moment. And I tell our people all the time, it's you build the moment, you build the moment, you build the moment. It's that obsession to detail. So like Michael or any of the greatest performers, they all have that in common. Taylor Swift, another one, you watch her and you're like, it's every moment her and Manny. That's why they work so well together. I just, that's what excites me because when you nail it, which doesn't happen often, there's no other feeling like that.

You feel it.

You do come alive. Like our first football stadium at Clemson, we had a halftime show in the middle of the game. We had singers up in the top decks. We had the whole Clemson band come together. We had both teams into a full performance. This is happening in the middle of the game with the clock still running. And they're all dancing. And I wish there was a clip somewhere. I'm jumping on the side, up and down, because I'm feeling it. I'm literally jumping up and down.

This is happening.

I'm going nuts because I'm watching the vision of like, we're hitting that upper deck, we're hitting that upper deck, we're hitting here. Now the whole band comes in, 200 people, now 60 performers, and you nail it. You know, those moments I feel alive.

For something like that, how much do you rehearse that big half?

An outrageous amount.

So you're rehearsing it where? At the stadium?

So every show starts, it's exactly like Saturday Night Live, and I've taken so much inspiration from them.

All week you're rehearsing.

You start you, you, you start on Tuesday.

Tuesday ideas, whatever.

All the ideas, you start, then you have your table read.

You probably have some set things that you're gonna do. You're like, all right, we have, or no, you start from scratch. It's all new.

Oh yeah. So you have, so you have like guys walk-off songs, right? You have different, you have your regular hits. Like we, we do Hey Baby, it's a Banana Land. We do that every game. So you have some romance, but all of the 50% is standard. Yeah. But Tuesday is all brand new.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so for instance, we have 6 shows and so we're every weekend. Uh, you only season. Yeah. So, so if you have, if you have 2 games a weekend, you have 6 shows. If we have 3 games a weekend, we have 9 shows and you're doing 10 to 15 brand new every night. So we do 100 brand new things. So Tuesday, all the idea sessions all day. Then we start writing the scripts, the blocking, the choreography, start doing rehearsal in Savannah for maybe that Wednesday. Then we fly.

Everyone's in Savannah.

Oh, all 6 teams are in Savannah. Really? Yeah. We had to figure that one out too. That was hard.

So they're all rehearsing and practicing during the—

Oh yeah. On one field. We had to figure that one out.

Yeah. Do they have different times?

Oh yeah, it's crazy. Our day's like literally from like 9 AM they're going, and then we have a little side field that we built of like— wow, you figure it out. Uh, because now we're all there, we understand.

That's cool that you're all there.

100%. You understand what it's all about. So we know the heart of who we are and what we stand for. You don't separate it. So yeah, then we travel and then saw that at Clemson, uh, the day before we start a little bit of rehearsals, the blocking.

It's a band though, right?

Well, we start that. Yeah, start. But then you go there and then you got to bring the Clemson band, then you got to bring the performers in, then you do that morning, then you do it during the day, you do 3, 4, 5 times, and then you just hope with 81,000 fans there and in the middle of the game, you hope the last—

that's what it all comes together.

You hope that it hits. And most times for me, it's hard because I know I see all the things that don't hit.

No, you have 100%. You're always going to see things that don't hit.

So like, well, always, well, whenever I go on a ride, I'm always asking what's wrong with things, how it's improved.

So funny. Cause I was at a, you know, we do a, we do a big event every year called the Summit of Greatness and and we do some smaller kind of mastermind events or whatever, but we're not an event company, but we like to put on a show when we do it. We want to go big. Oh yeah. We've never made any money because we overspent on production and experience and music.

The Walker philosophy.

Dance and art. We make it an artistic expression of life. And when you spend money on art, you don't make money unless it's like a long-term investment. So, and we don't sell anything at our events.

Yeah.

There's no upsell. There's no nothing. It's all fans. The worst business model.

Yeah, but you're creating a community. You're— there's a purpose for you're creating.

Give back. Yeah, yeah.

100%. 100%.

And, um, it's so funny because, you know, uh, so I relate to this because we're rehearsing for 2 days before, but we're really rehearsing all year round.

Yeah.

And then we only have like 2 days. Yes. On location while you're building the set and the production. And there's tons of moving parts to try to get the essence of the feeling you want to create.

Yes.

And you hope that when it starts at 9 AM, like the music cues hit, the performance, like everything works with all those rehearsals. So I understand that feeling. And I was in Australia last week, had a little speaking tour.

Yeah.

And I wasn't putting on the event, but the guy who was putting on the event, it's just so funny because I notice when something's not working also from behind the scenes. So we were doing like this little kind of VIP meet and greet Q&A at the end. And I could see, because at one point we were given the mics to like do Q&A. Yeah. And the mic wasn't on and I could just see him scratching the mic like without anyone noticing. I could just, I looked over, I see him scratching it and just kind of tapping and then looking over and I go, I just laugh and I look at him and go, I go, you're obsessive like me. I'll go through the littlest details. Yeah. The mic is not turned on. I'm like, right when you need it to be turned on. And I could just see it and we just kind of had this laughing moment of like the production mind, you know, you always see it.

But I think what you said, what you said earlier was really brilliant. You said, uh, you know, you have this feeling that you want to mind. I think most people like, they're like, I want to build this. I want to create this. I want to do this. But it's, it's, it's working backwards from that feeling. Like what's that feeling that you, like, if you work backwards, I, I, I had to, when I was struggling, I was, uh, you know, starting Gastonia and it was just me. It was like a few of us. Like we were just, I was burnt out almost every night.

Really?

Oh man. I was just, I was doing everything I was doing. Sales, I was doing sponsorship, I was doing finance, I was burnt out. And finally I was just like, all right, what days are the days that I feel good? And I looked at my schedule and it was days that I was coming up with ideas or I was out sharing what we're doing, talking to people, or I was promoting, I was doing all that, or I was learning, I was doing that. And so I created, you know, uh, my energy list and it's all things that are creating, sharing, and growing.

Yeah.

And what I realized, what you just said there, it's like work backwards from that and work backwards from the feeling that you want to have.

Yes.

And like, I can, I vividly can remember that feeling at Clemson jumping up and down. I feel, I feel, I can feel it right now because it, everything came together and it's like, okay, why, how do you work backwards from that? What are you trying to create? I was like, what I felt was everyone together was doing something together. We were building something together. It wasn't just one person doing this, one person doing this. It was hundreds of people on the field, people up in the stands, everyone in this moment together. And it's like, okay, I always wanna create those shared emotional powerful moments. Where you feel alive. And so that's what I work backwards from because if I can have one of those a day, one of those a week, it's a great week. It's a great day. That's big.

Yeah. Wow. So everyone, there's what, hundreds of players now?

And yeah, yeah. 160 players, 150 cast members.

How does this work then? Do you pay their rent or do they, they have to move, they have to move there and then they find an apartment, they find a house and they just, they live their life. They're getting a salary.

Yeah.

So you're not paying for, yeah.

I mean, we, we pay them, we pay them year round, which most leagues don't. We pay them year round. They have full health insurance. They have all the, you know, the benefits, all that stuff. But yeah, we're a, You know, we're really proud of where it's come because, you know, you look at where baseball leagues and minor leagues and everything else, I mean, it's just at such a low level and we're continuing to grow at a higher level than we ever imagined. And I'm very grateful for that.

Now I'm interested, I'm curious about this because most people think of it as obviously they're coming to watch baseball, but you look at it more as entertainment, I'm assuming.

Yeah.

Yes. Baseball's the, the game we're playing, I guess.

Well, Banana Ball. We don't use the term baseball. It's not baseball yet. Okay.

It's Banana Ball. But are you trying to get your guys to be better at dancing and entertaining and performing, or trying to have them better at banana ball, playing baseball within your level of banana ball?

D, all of the above.

Really?

So like, yes.

I mean, it's already now I'm assuming they're better baseball players within banana ball rather than—

They all start as baseball players.

Yes.

They become banana ball players. And what we hope is they all obsess over put it on the greatest performance, the greatest show, and creating fans. And so we're very intentional. I mean, we, during our spring training, we spend days going through who we are, what we stand for, what great banana ball is. In the middle of the season, I meet with him, I talk. We literally have everything timed, how long the games are, how many trick plays we're doing, all of this. I mean, it's a constant metric of how do we make the game better. I mean, we're having, we're having games over 30 trick plays. That's backflip catches behind. We have first baseman catching the ball behind their head on a ball thrown like this. We've had double plays where a guy catches a bare hand at first base on a 90-mile-an-hour— it's crazy. Wow. Barehand backflip catches. They're doing things every night I've never seen before on a baseball field. I love that because that's how you— we can't get bored, you know, going back to the feeling of boredom. If we've seen it all, we're going to—

you want to watch to see what's happening.

Oh yeah. I don't want to miss something. What's going to happen if me and our team— we don't want to miss anything. Good luck for the fans their first time coming.

What do you think will happen when all of your players get better at dancing and performing and the entertainment side just as good as they are at the baseball side.

Well, you plus, so, or better. Yeah. So, so here's a, here's a good thing that I learned in Bring On. We talk a lot about raising the bar and we talk about who's going to be the bar raisers. And so like, for instance, we had Ziggy, Alex Ziegler. And so he was the bat trickster. I found it. He was on the internet doing bat tricking.

That's cool.

Yeah. And he balanced and he could do all these things. And so he's a bat trickster, but can he hit the ball? Yeah. He played baseball so he could, yeah, he could eat. Yeah. He had a home run at Clemson, I think last year, which was awesome. So, uh, we won't say how short the fence was because it was a football stadium, but he hit a home run. So my point was, uh, he, I watched, I said, guys, just continue to try things and show things again. Go to Steve Jobs. People don't know what they want until you show it to them. So he was in the off season and he was just catching balls like this and catching balls like this. So I said, Ziggy, what is that? He goes, I just been working on it. So I call our coach, I go, let's put Ziggy at first. He goes, Ziggy first?

And I go, yeah, he's catching from behind the back.

He's catching behind the back. So he goes over there and he's just practicing over and over and over again. And the first time a guy throws a ball over and he immediately turns and catches it like that against our— we were all like, what? And then the next day he catches ball like this. He's now our regular first baseman.

Oh, that's cool.

But professionally, he's doing it. He raised the bar.

And now everyone else needs to learn how to do that.

D.R. Meadows, our center fielder, first he was like, I can do a backflip. I'm gonna try to catch a ball doing a backflip. Start doing it. Then he's like, I'm gonna try without a glove to the bare hand. Then he's like, I saw the Saquon Barkley where a guy jumped over backwards. I'm gonna jump backwards and catch the ball between my legs. He did the Saquon Barkley. He raises the bar in the outfield. Rack raises the bar. He's trying to do aerial catches and all these other things. So for instance, everyone you look at, at Raising the Bar, Derek Klena, I don't know if you know the name, but Derek Klena was a Broadway A-lister, is a Broadway A-lister. And passing in Paul, we were writing and coming up with ideas and he goes, have you heard of Derek Klena? I go, no. Start showing me. I'm like, he was on Wicked, literally, and Moulin Rouge and like A-lister. But he played baseball at UCLA 13 years ago. And I was like, Derek, and we, we connect. I go, you crazy idea. Why don't you come down to a tryout?

Come sing.

He comes down to a tryout. Shut up. And he takes a mic out, sings, and it's the best I've ever heard singing on a field because it's Broadway full, unbelievable. And then he pitches. I was like, the arm works. Now he's not throwing 90 miles an hour, but the arm works.

Yeah, yeah.

So we talked and we said, you want to give it a shot?

Is he playing now?

He's a full-time player with the big leagues.

Come on.

And so when you—

He was on Broadway, now he's with you guys?

He left Broadway and now he's a full-time—

He's a pitcher?

Oh yeah.

Does he sing like in the middle of innings or something?

Oh yeah. Derek has generated hundreds of millions of views. He has gone from thousands of followers to hundreds of thousands of followers. He— we wrote our song, Show Starts Now. He's saying at the ESPYs live.

That's incredible.

And it's— wow, he raised the bar. So now that we have a singer player, what's next?

You mean a dancer player?

Well, yeah, we have breakdancing coaches. We have other things that we have. We have cast that's unbelievable that are doing things that you know, never seen before. And we've got two Broadway-type guys that are hosts for the Indianapolis Clowns. We've got the number one juggler in the world, Spencer, who's with us juggling for the Indianapolis Clowns, which was the former Negro League team that was all about entertainment. We've got an acrobat who was from Cirque du Soleil. We've got one of the best contortionists in the world that's with us that we're going to give him his first at-bat this week. So he's going to come up to bat and hopefully he'll be like—

enter something—

hopefully he'll be completely flat on the ground with no strikes. So we'll see what happens. And so You keep pushing the envelope and raising the bar. And so, who's going to raise the bar in your position? Who's going to raise the bar here? And that's what excites me.

This is cool, man.

Hey, that's why you got to see the show, man.

I got to bring you out. Yeah, I got to come out. This has been powerful, Jesse. I've got a couple final questions for you. This one's called the 3 Truths. Imagine it's your last day on Earth, many years away, and you get to create and manifest everything you want in this life from personal to banana ball to everything, it comes true beyond your wildest dreams. Imagine 6 years ago when you did your first game to where it is now, how much it's grown, and imagine 50 years from now where it could be. But on your last day, you have to take all of your information with you. This conversation, your books, everything you ever say, video's gone. But you get to leave behind 3 lessons to the world.

Oh geez. Yeah. Yeah. You've asked for, I hope. Yeah.

You only get to leave behind 3 lessons that we would get to remember of your content. What would those 3 truths be for you?

Yeah. I mean, I go back to, you know, the first thing we ever put on our Fans First Playbook. I wrote, be patient in what you want for yourself, but be impatient in how much you give to others. And so I think that's something that I've really learned that is a, been powerful for us. Again, this isn't so eloquent, but do what gives you energy. You know, I think that's just something that I've, and you know, again, there's lots of all these sayings that I think our staff could all say are my sayings, but you know, I don't want to use those. I just like to keep things simple and spread joy. Just spread joy, man. And it's, it's, you know, it's how you show up, how you do anything is how you do everything. And if you spread joy, you bring energy. And you give to others, I think anything is possible.

Good things happen.

Yeah, good things happen. Yes.

You've got Banana Bowl, I believe. Is it on ESPN in October? Do we know where it's at?

Disney. The Banana Bowl. Yes.

What is this Banana Bowl?

It's the biggest event in Banana Bowl history. Have you done this before? It's our Super Bowl. It's our WrestleMania.

No. So what is it going to be? What can people expect when they watch it? What can we do?

We're going to do— we're bringing all 6 teams, all of our cast. There'll be hundreds of people. It's going to be the biggest performance of our lives. We're gonna, we're gonna picture a Super Bowl halftime show, but we're gonna do the final inning show with all original music. And it is gonna be over the top and it's gonna be larger than life. And, uh, it is the scariest thing I've ever done. Um, because it's the biggest stakes. And if you go back to first WrestleMania, the first Super Bowl, all those moments, this is it for us. And to show that it's so much more than just one team, so much more than just one person. It's, uh, it's a movement. And the Banana Ball universe is here to stay. That's our first night we're going to go out and prove it.

Wow. Where is it going to be? Do we know yet?

Do we? We can't share. It is something that has changed.

It's not public yet.

It's not public and it's changed a lot over time.

Maybe he don't know where.

Well, there's a lot of things that have changed and there's intentionality on where it's going to be. And we're pretty close to be able to announce that.

Wow. That's cool.

Yeah.

But it'll be televised or it'll be—

Oh, it'll be all over Disney. It'll be all global. It'll be Disney. And there'll be, there'll be things that we've never done before, bigger than we've ever done them before. And I'm hoping for that feeling that I had at Clemson, that I'm jumping up and down. Wow. But it's going to be extremely hard. And if we deliver, it'll be something people will never forget. Wow.

It'd be cool if it was at Disney, huh?

Yeah. Well, we play games in the Wide World of Sports, but yeah, you can't, you can't have it at, I don't think Magic Kingdom there. We could fit, we could fit the fields and all that stuff there. Maybe one day.

What, um, by the end of Banana Bowl, what is the feeling you want to have after you, after it's midnight, all the fans leave and you've accomplished your first ever Banana Bowl? What do you want to feel? And yeah, what do you want to feel?

I'm going to hug my dad and hug Emily, hug the kids. I've had these feelings before. So when you do something that's really hard and you work really hard for it and you get to feel it and you get to feel how far you've come and, you know, we've come from nothing. We've come from a wild journey, a lot of criticism every step of the way. People told us that we couldn't do it. And when you do something that is beyond anything you ever imagined and you, the key is to not, you know, be at the top of that mountain and be by yourself. And to be with my dad, my family, and then all the people that have worked so hard on this. As much as it's going to be amazing seeing the thousands of fans at the end of the night, it's going to be coming back to have our final fans first chat, cheersing everyone, being around everyone and saying, look at what we just did.

Wow.

That's going to be— and the song that we wrote was Look What We Made. Dream it up. It could look something like this. Long ago, we said we'd make it someday. Hey, hey, look what we made. Wow. And that's the song we're going to perform, the final song.

That is cool.

Yeah, it's going to be pretty special.

Wow, man. This is amazing.

Yeah.

I want to acknowledge you, Jesse, for the journey you've been on, man. It's been crazy, you know, since I met you in 2018 for a few minutes. We've been connected over the years on social media and texts and things like that, just seeing what you've been up to. But it's inspiring to see you've stuck true to your values. And you've just gone for it. You've gone for it and you've been riding the wave and you haven't allowed outside forces to get you off path. And I think a lot of people get caught up in shiny objects for the wrong reasons. You've been, you know, caught up in your own shiny object for the right reasons and stuck true to yourself. So I want to acknowledge you for staying true to yourself, for not doing it for the money, but doing it for people and bringing as much joy to as many people as possible. And I cannot wait to to get to a game one day.

So we're going to have some fun. You better be ready. You're going to, we're going to get you going.

I'm in, man. Put me in, put me in.

Dancing, singing, football. You mean going for it?

Let's go. You know, I'm in for this.

We're going to have some fun.

For people that haven't seen Banana Ball yet, how can they follow the journey, get on a waitlist, social media? Where should they go to experience what you're talking about if they've never seen it? And then how can they come to a game or be a part of the universe?

Good. I appreciate using the Banana Ball universe.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we're easy to find. You search Banana Ball, search the Bananamananas, and, you know, even I think my phone number, my email's still out there everywhere. It's crazy. But yeah, I mean, we post every day. You know, one of the things I believe is you learn by doing. And so when we first started social media, we didn't know what we're doing. We said we're going to post every day, try to spread joy, try to make baseball fun and show what we're doing. And now, you know, fortunate over 40 million followers that have been following us on this journey. And so, yeah, we are very visible. We're very out there. I think that's one of the biggest things that is our differentiator. You know, when many people put barriers between people, we try to, you know, break down those barriers and allow our fans to be around us and interact. And we love it. It gives us joy and purpose. So very accessible, probably too much to an extent, but I love it. And the joy I feel when fans come up to me and, you know, think about this, how many people in their life, someone, you get to feel it. I know because of what you do, but how many people come up to say thank you, you know, just to come up. I wish everyone in the world get thanked every day for what they do. And we get to feel that. So I'm very grateful.

Gosh, man, it's a blessing. Anytime I— I don't really leave much. Like, I, you know, I work out at home. My trainer comes to me. I come to the office. I go home with my kids.

Yes.

I don't go out as much. But anytime I travel or go out and someone comes up to me and tells me how the show's impacted their life. Yeah. There's no better feeling to meet someone that you've made a difference in their life. There's no better feeling. And so if you get to this every week and high-five thousands of people who are having the best time ever, there's nothing else you'd rather do.

100%. It's fuel.

If someone gave you $1 billion right now to sell it, you'd be like, I don't know what else I would do. I would go redo this whole thing again.

100%.

Because it's not about the money, it's about the impact.

100%. And that's what helps me when there's constant criticism, because we still get criticism. You know, every day we get criticism because, you know, the only people that get criticized are the people that actually do something. Yeah.. And so we're gonna keep doing, I'm gonna have that fuel from those people. And you know, that's, that drives us. If you don't want to, you know, I just, I so believe in just showing up constantly for the people that believe in what you believe in. And I realize that we're gonna continue to get criticized. The bigger the stage, the bigger the criticism. But the people that believe in you and you feel that every day that come up and thank you, that's who we're work for. That's who it is.

Yeah. How, I'm just curious, how many followers does all of MLB or MLB teams have combined? Do you know? It's not a, I was curious.

No, I don't know. I honestly like, I think a lot of people, they spend a lot of time focusing on their competitors. You know, I'm just obsessed over our fans or what do we say, our customers. But like, yeah, I don't know. I mean, they, it's, they probably, they probably have a lot, but I know we, I know our party animals have, I was told more than every Major League Baseball team on TikTok and they're our second team. So like it shows you we've been able to grow by giving something that fans, you know, want.

Wow.

Which is fun.

That's amazing, man. Well, they can follow you, Yellow Tux Jesse, all over social media. You got a lot of great content. And the thing I like about your content, you tell a lot of great stories. Yeah, thank you. So you're in the stadiums, you're on location sharing stories, which I think is just really cool.

Well, think about this. Who's, if you look back, who's the biggest inspiration for you? Like in your, like maybe not just personal, but maybe even someone big. Like for me, it's Walt Disney. Like, is there anybody that like, that's not as numerous?

I mean, like, you know, LeBron James, I liked as an athlete.

Anyone from way back? Anyone from like anyone that—

Michael Jordan was like, You know, when I was growing up, he was the guy.

And you got to see it a little bit with The Last Dance. But think about this.

The Last Dance was good.

Think about—

we didn't tell many stories though during growing up.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Just on play.

If Walt Disney and his journey of building Snow White, Disneyland, was sharing the ups and the downs and when they mess up—

incredible.

That's what's— so I realized like I had such a great gift to be able to read a lot. But why on this journey? Like, it's hard. We're going through it. I just love— I think it's something I love sharing it because I know other people are going through some things.

Yeah, man.

And so that's like gives me inspiration. It inspires me. I'm like, I think back, man, if Walt Cherry really found the day. Incredible.

Yeah. You're a great storyteller, man.

That's awesome.

Thank you. Findyouryellowtux.com. You can learn more about you and what you're building as well. But Yellow Tux Jesse on socials. Final question, Jesse. What's your definition of greatness?

You know, it's funny. I think about, I've watched so many of your shows and I probably, I know some people probably prepare on these. Like I was just like, I want to be here with you. I, the way I, greatness is someone being the best version themselves and truly being able to give and go all out and just really, I think about what we do and I think about, I've been surrounded by a lot of greatness and they are, they've been in tune with everything that lights them up, that makes them feel alive. And they give everything they got at the best version of themselves. And I think that's something that, you know, you could look at greatness as, you know, success, fulfillment, joy. And I think all that comes to it. But someone that's truly great is able to put in tune everything that they have, everything that they can give to the world, and they give their best. I think that's what, that's what greatness can be. So I probably should have thought of that more in detail. But it's funny, you know, it's so funny. Like, I know you asked those questions, but I was like, I'm just going to be present with you and I'm not going to like think about stuff. But, uh, beautiful, man. Well, what do you, what do you define greatness as?

My current definition, because it doesn't change, it probably has about—

that's where I figure where you are in your world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And for me, it's discovering your unique diancen gifts. Yeah, yeah, uh, to pursue your dreams in that pursuit, making the maximum impact on the people around you. Yeah, for me, that's what it is, because I feel like you were born to discover what our gifts are And I feel like it's a waste if we don't pursue those gifts.

But I think it's a similarity. What we— because I said to you, the best version of yourself, you have to have your unique gifts. Yes. All right.

I think it's a waste if you just do it for selfish reasons, for you to like look good rather than impact, help people around you. Yeah. So that's the current. But who knows, maybe in 30 years I'll be like, well, it's interesting.

Well, I wrote my— in my first book, I wrote my obituary and I was 30 years old or whatever I was. It's different. That's completely different because, you know, at 30, you're different mindset as you grow and you evolve. And I was like, how do you— how will you be remembered? And so like, greatness, like right now I'm just talking with you. I'm like, all right, what's the best version of yourself? But like, you know, if you think about it in 5 years, it'd be like, ooh, this is greatness. Of course. But again, you, when I surround myself with greatness, I see an unbelievable obsession, an obsession with how to make something truly special and different and unique. It's an obsession. Yeah. And I don't, I don't find anybody that's truly great that is not obsessed. And people look at obsession as a bad thing. I think it's a beautiful thing. I think if you can find something that you're truly obsessed with, boy, what a gift. Yes, not many people have that. And so that's, you know, it's— I think that's a really good point. I think in 5, 10 years, if we see how you evolve and how you define things— yeah, man, we jam, man.

Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you, man.

So good, my friend.

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