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Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold

Ep. 578 - Savannah Bananas President Jared Orton – How Fun Became the Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold

Second in Command with Cameron Herold

Management, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Business

4.9 • 224 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What happens when you set out to break every rule in one of America’s most traditional sports, and people flock to watch?

In this Fan Favorite episode, Jared Orton, President of the Savannah Bananas, unpacks how a no-name baseball team triggered a movement by making fun non-negotiable and burning down industry norms. Discover how relentless experiments, cultural friction, player resistance, and pandemic chaos forced Jared Orton and his team to make brutal business choices, all while scaling from selling a few tickets to filling stadiums across America.

Miss this episode, and you risk clinging to safe growth strategies while your competitors reinvent, electrify their culture, and claim your customers. Listen now. Get the raw, strategic truth behind explosive growth and team alignment that most leaders never hear about.

Timestamped Highlights

  • 00:00 – Why telling fans “You can’t buy a ticket” made them desperate to get in
  • 03:34 – The culture playbook that turned baseball on its head
  • 07:59 – The brutal truth: fun was their only real competitive edge
  • 12:03 – The $15 all-you-can-eat gamble that shocked their market
  • 15:39 – How they engineer relentless fun without losing operational discipline
  • 20:44 – Why letting the wrong players walk is a proven culture win
  • 25:00 – The pandemic forced a do-or-die vision shift overnight
  • 34:00 – Their biggest tactical mistake and how it nearly cost everything

About the Guest

Jared Orton is the President of the Savannah Bananas, an electrifying baseball brand known for redefining the fan experience and selling out stadiums nationwide. With a proven track record in entertainment-driven growth, Jared Orton has transformed the Savannah Bananas from a struggling local team into a national phenomenon.

🔗 LinkedIn | Website

Mentioned Resources


Important Links


Note: This Fan Favorite episode is a recast of one of our most impactful interviews, still packed with insights for second-in-command leaders. Whether it’s your first listen or a revisit, there’s timeless value inside.

The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey there, just a quick note before we dive in.

0:02.6

This is actually one of our older episodes, but we're bringing it back because it's one of the most downloaded ones we've ever released.

0:08.5

Clearly, it struck a chord with a lot of listeners, and I know there's so much value packed inside.

0:13.6

So whether you're hearing it for the first time or revisiting it, enjoy this fan favorite.

0:22.1

Welcome to the Second in Command podcast, produced by the C.O. Alliance and brought to you by

0:28.4

its founder, Cameron Herald. In the Second in Command podcast, we talked to top COs

0:34.2

who share the insights, strategies, and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief.

0:39.8

And now, here's your host, Cameron Harold.

0:46.6

All right, we've got an amazing 400th episode of the Second and Command podcast for you today.

0:51.5

We have Jared Orton, who is the president of the Savannah

0:54.8

Bananas baseball team and traveling club. Also the crater of banana ball, which is this new

1:01.6

sport taking over the United States and probably soon in the world. You're going to love this

1:06.0

episode. It's an amazing organization where they're really grounded and focused around culture,

1:11.0

around fun, around challenging the status quo, around having to deal with massive,

1:15.8

massive growth in an organization taking a baseball team from basically no one showing up

1:20.3

to filling 20,000 person stadiums over and over again, getting to the point where they had

1:25.2

no more seats and no more games they could sell out

1:27.6

because they were sellouts all year, that they had to recreate the entire business and recreate

1:31.7

the entire team. Jared shares with us some incredible ideas and systems around that kind of

1:37.4

growth, dealing with marketing, dealing with operations, and dealing with the crazy dynamic

1:42.5

CEO who is always pressing play on coming up with more new ideas.

1:46.4

You're going to love this episode. We'll see you on the inside.

...

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