What's up lightwaters today? We're with Jackson Olson third baseman for the Savannah banana baseball team a baseball team with

7 million tiktok followers and they are known for being the most fun team in baseball. We just saw a game today. How'd you like it?

It was so much fun. It's so different from traditional baseball. It's incredible. It's I mean, it's obviously a circus and we pride ourselves on that and we are do everything

opposite of normal. But people tend to like it and I mean you said 7 million followers and I don't think they thought that was possible at the start, but we just make

baseball fun and that's it. The team has been around since 2016. 2016, yeah. And every game is sold out. Every game usually oversold out. Can you give the backstory of the Savannah bananas? Yeah, so Jesse Cole, the owner. Who's at every game? At every game in the yellow tux. We saw him running around and I told my fiance that I was going to surprise

her on our wedding day and where that? Hopefully. I think you totally should. I think you should. You should. Yellow dress. Yeah. But basically, Jesse Cole and his wife met and they took a trip to Savannah and they were like, they loved it. They fell

over the ballpark, but there's already a team there. And then Jesse basically told one of the guys that was working there. He was like, if this market ever becomes open, I'm bringing

a team here. What does that mean if this market ever comes open? So basically, if a team moves, if the Sand Nats, it was the Sand Nats at the time, Savannah Sand Nats. And they were getting some fans of games, not many, but just he saw the stadium and he saw Savannah. And he was like, we need a team here. And he started. He was at 23 years old. And he was a general manager for the worst team in summer collegiate baseball. But still, like, he was general manager at 23. And so he was learning everything, learning everything. And he was like, basically,

baseball is so boring. Like, we need to bring fun to baseball. So we started with, like, smaller stuff, smaller stuff here and there, like, just fun things, like, dunk tanks and like, flatulence, fun nights, just like crazy stuff, grandma, beauty pageants. And then he realized, like, hey, we're selling tickets because of the fun. Like, let's make our players dance. And then they had the first dance. And he told me told the story tells us all the time. And he walked through the crowd one day. And this woman was sitting there. And then he

said, her husband was next to him. And she was like, shut up, honey. They're about to dance. And like, during a baseball game. And it's just crazy that like, now, it went from that to like, smaller things, smaller things. And now it's the greatest show in sports. And it's unreal. I was watching an interview with him where he realized that he needed to sell the tickets. And he kind of went. The showman route of reading books on Barnum and Bailey Walt Disney. And he really, really hit it home with that because it.

Well, you guys do has been so like on its own. So it's almost like the Harlem Globetrotters, which is incredibly successful for basketball. And someone else was comparing it to the XFL, but that obviously flopped it. Now I came back. But I think you guys are so just different and your own. And like, I mean, I was smiling the entire time because I'm like, what's happening next? And there's never a dull moment. There's a two hour time limit. It's just so like it's own. And it has such an atmosphere. And there's so many people there. And.

I don't know. I think what you guys do is so cool now. Yeah. It's the best. It's so much fun. So. Do you guys get paid when to play as if it's like a real baseball team? Yep. Yep. We get paid to play. Just like a salary. And then anything we do on the side, whether it's like a lot of us are on social media, we're influencers. So we're able to do brand deals and stuff like that. So kind of two forms. Like I see myself as having two jobs right now, like an influencer and a baseball player. So it's pretty cool to have both. And you kind of use that.

I'm just trying to get on to the team yourself. No. I did use it to get on the team. They usually have a try out. And I was in the middle of their season. So I'm like, I wouldn't be able to try out for another year. So I made a TikTok. I was like, Hey, I think you guys are really cool. What you guys do is awesome. And made it just a fun like skit video. And Jesse reached out the owner. And he was like, Hey, man, like if we can ever work together, let's do it. And so it started out as I was going to come for a weekend in August, last August, and just make content. And I'm like, that's so cool. But I

think that I like two phone calls later. I was like, Hey, Jesse, if you ever need a third baseman, I know you've a shortstop. You've a second baseman, but I can play. I played college play D one baseball four years. And he was like, All right, let's let's see what happens. Let's like, like, like talk about it. And a month went by. I was at the college World Series making content. And he called and he was like, you want to be our third baseman? And I just lit up my eyes lit up. Everything was like my entire life changed at that moment when he offered me that position. And now you're fully on the team. You guys are touring. We're here at the Hilton

Garden in Rancho Cucamanga. You guys are originally from Savannah, Georgia. Yep. You guys have a tour bus outside with your logo on it. I'm just, I'm so confused that every two us to we are to trust me. So we're confused. So you guys have obviously, like, you built your following on social media, which has allowed you to tour all over the country. Yeah. So basically teams started seeing it and organizations, MLB organizations, minor league organizations,

they saw it. And they were like, how do we get the Savannah bananas to plan our stadium? Like, how cool would that be? They're going to sell it out 100%. They're going to our team store is going to be open. People can buy like, we played at the Dodgers affiliate today.

Rancho Cucamanga. It's like, they can go buy stuff in their team store. Oh, that's the Dodgers. Yeah. So we played a lot of minor league stadiums. Are they like a single a single a yep.

And so they realized like this could really open up a huge opportunity for us, having the bananas come in. And like, maybe those fans will come back to a game for the quakes, which is a Rancho Cucamanga quakes.

So they see it as an opportunity. We see it as an opportunity. And it kind of just like works well together. And then next year we're going to be selling out major league baseball stadiums. So, and you got, well, that I want to come back to that. Yeah. That's my question. That's pretty crazy.

You guys are playing the party animals. Yep. Is that a team that you brought from Savannah? Yeah. So it's kind of like our counterpart, like heroes villains type thing. They're here to disrupt the show. Their job is to disrupt the bananas. Like, it's the cool thing about it. And you said Globetrotters is the Globetrotters went every single game. But the party animals are nasty. And we, they win a lot of games. We win a lot of games. But like, none of that is scripted. The gameplay is not scripted. We're not like, we're not telling the picture. Hey, throw a strike down the middle. So Jackson, get it a homerun. Like, we're not doing it.

We're doing that in the Globetrotters. They are scripting stuff. They're scripting dunks. And they beat the generals by 100 every game. Maybe not 100, but by a lot. And I think that's what people stay in why the fan base is so loyal because they see this is real baseball. And like, it's pretty cool.

Do you play the same team every game back at home? So we play the party animals a lot, but we also play challengers and their independent ball, not affiliated with any major league teams. So they're able to play our rules.

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