45:53He turned a broke team into a billion dollars
From My First Million · Published Oct 7, 2025 · Watch on YouTube
TL;DR
Jesse Cole inherited a broke college summer league team averaging 200 fans, spent a decade experimenting with promotions, then created the Savannah Bananas. He developed "Banana Ball" (a 2-hour game format with unique rules), built a 3-million-person ticket waiting list, and generates an estimated $70–100M revenue.
Key insights
- Jesse Cole spent nearly ten years tinkering and experimenting with the Gastonia Grizzlies before the Savannah Bananas existed; in his first ten years he had only one media story cover him.
- He studied security footage after games to see when fans left, got bored, or how long concessions took; now his team takes bleacher snapshots every 10–15 minutes to reverse-engineer engagement.
- He committed to writing down ten new ideas every day starting in 2016, calling it "working your idea muscle" – 70–80% were terrible, but the discipline forced creative output.
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