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June 22, 2023

Simply Bananas: Barnstorming Tour Lifts Club Revenues 900% YoY

The Savannah Bananas announced a 71-game, 33-city barnstorming tour back in October. The club had hoped its first road show would increase revenues

from $3 million in ‘22 to $18 million in ’23

.

That goal has since been amended. Demand drove the Bananas to add 18 additional dates (all sold out within a matter of hours) and merchandise per caps are up ~50% YoY.  

“We were projecting 375,000 tickets sold [this summer],” Jared Orton (president, Savannah Bananas) said. “We’re going to land at a half million. We were projecting $15 [per] head in merch [sales] and it’s going to end up being between $24 and $25. Those two things are driving the [business beyond expectations].”

$30 million in revenue –a 900% YoY increase– is now a realistic target.

The Bananas have done a good job telling their story (think: baseball is fun) and have provided fans with a compelling value proposition (see: ticket + basic ballpark fare for $25 or $30). The club also took an unconventional approach to ticket sales and distribution.

Its goal was to build demand for an eventual on-sale date. So, the Bananas announced the cities for this summer’s tour and started a pre-sale lottery list in October. Those who joined agreed to be entered into a drawing for tickets at a later date. If selected, they would be able to purchase four seats to a single tour stop. 

“What happened was [over the next three months] these pre-sale lists started going two and three times the number of available tickets we had in the venue,” Orton said.

The Bananas added second and third dates in select cites to cater to the demand. But when the pre-sale list hit 230,000 and the team was out of stadium availability, it had no choice but to stop taking new additions.

“We felt like we were going to get to a point where we were overpromising people,” Orton said.

And disappointment is

not

part of the Bananas brand.

Fans selected off the pre-sale list actually do not get the first crack at buying seats. That honor is reserved for K-club members, the 4,000 super fans who pay $49 per year for priority access to tickets and other benefits.

Once the Bananas’ most passionate supporters have had the chance to buy seats, the remaining inventory goes to those selected from the pre-sale list. Fans are identified and contacted roughly two months prior to the team arriving in a given market.

Orton believes if the club sold its tickets further in advance that redemption rates, which hit 96% during one recent tour stop, would decline and more tickets would end up on the secondary market. Those tickets would likely sell for multiples of their face value in many cities.

The demand to see the Bananas act is so great that there is now a secondary pre-sale list with an additional 340,000 fans on it. Those individuals know they will not be getting tickets to a game this year. They’re hoping to be in the mix for ’24 and beyond.

The Bananas did not create this go-to-market strategy. Its roots come from a book by Daniel Priestley called

Oversubscribed

that explores why some brands have customers lining up to do business with them (think: Apple), while others struggle to attract buyers.

“He uses the Glastonbury Music Festival as an example, where [organizers] sell hundreds of thousands of tickets in just a few hours and no one even knows who the bands are yet,” Orton said. “They only put the tickets on sale for a finite period. The rest of the time is spent campaigning and building demand…and when [tickets] go on sale, [fans know they] better be ready to act because if [they] don’t, [they’re] out.”

Of course, the approach only works if the property has the requisite demand. Making one’s most loyal customers jump through hoops only to fall short of a sell-out is a surefire way to alienate those individuals.

There can often be an extended period between when fans join a pre-sale list and when tickets finally go on sale. So, the Bananas rely on steady stream of direct-to-consumer communication to keep them engaged.

While the club has worked to create overwhelming demand to attend games, it has also taken steps to grow the business’ other revenue streams.

The Bananas invested in a new merchandise warehouse that enables it to bring more product to games. It has also embraced collaborations with brands like Evo Shield and Louisville Slugger that have resulted in some higher priced offerings, and rolled out an official game ball. The team sold 2,000 yellow Banana balls at one recent tour stop.

“We’re going to those truly custom, you can only get this [item] because you went to a Bananas game [approach],” Orton said.

The club executive believes a $30 merch per cap will be an achievable goal in the near future.

The Bananas have also invested in broadcast production capabilities. The club airs all its games, for free, on the team’s YouTube channel. The average broadcast draws between 40,000 and 60,000 fans and it sells ads against those impressions.

The Bananas likely could find a broadcaster willing to pay a traditional rights fee, but Orton prefers to wait for the media landscape to settle before it commits to an exclusive pact with one.

“We’re going to keep this thing on YouTube until we find there’s a bonafide distribution channel out there that can get [the product] out to a bigger audience,” Orton said. “We have to build fans [and YouTube provides the best platform to do that for now].”

Co-distribution remains a possibility.

Moving forward, the opportunity for growth is in adding more teams and more games, playing in bigger stadiums and larger cities.

“Everything goes back to how do we create more of these bigger live events,” Orton said.

The club is projecting 800,000 fans will attend Bananas games ’24 and “it’s not out of the realm of possibility to do 1 million in 2026,” he said.

For context, the Bananas played in front of

roughly 180,000 fans

last year.