Jesse Cole Talked About the History of the Savannah Bananas with Pat McAfee After Historic Banana Ball Weekend

Jesse Cole told the wild story of the Savannah Bananas!

Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole celebrates with the fans during the first game of the Banana Ball Championship series on Thursday, October 2, 2025 at Historic Grayson Stadium. | Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

This weekend, the Savannah Bananas played in front of 102,000 fans in a sold out game in College Station, Texas. They played against the Texas Tailgaters in Kyle Field on Texas A&M's campus. This was the largest crowd that the Savannah Bananas have ever played in front of.

As a testament to the growth of the sport of Banana Ball, the Savannah Bananas were not the home team in this game! It was actuallly the Texas Tailgaters who headlined the game and played as the home team. This is only the second year in the history of the Texas Tailgaters and their brand is growing! 102.000 people watched them play, most of them probably came for the Bananas but with the team playing in Texas and being a Texas brand, a ton of fans probably left cheering for the Tailgaters! The game ultimately went the way of the Tailgaters as they took down the Bananas 4-3.

All of this growth in Banana Ball is amazing, but it is important to remember the team's humble beginnings. And that is exactly what Jesse Cole talked about while he was on the Pat McAfee show. Before the Savannah Bananas were the phenomenon that they are now, they were a small college summer baseball team. And one that was struggling!

"When we started @TheSavBananas we only sold two tickets in our first three months..

We've played in front of 3.4 million fans this year and 102,000 on Saturday" ~ @YellowTuxJesse#PMSLive pic.twitter.com/ueZ4iB6WFI

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 4, 2026

Jesse Cole talked about how in the first three months, they struggled to even sell two tickets! Jesse Cole and his wife had to sell their house and ended up going in huge amounts of debt in order to fund the team. They had to innovate and make it more entertaining for fans. Eventually Banana Ball was born out of all of their crazy ideas. And now it is popular enough to sell out Major League Baseball stadiums and even huge football stadiums! All of their sacrifice has turned into something amazing!

If you want to hear more about what is going on in the world of Banana Ball, make sure to subscribe to the Banana Breakdown Podcast where we break down the games and chat with players! We have a livestream every Wednesday evening on Youtube!