This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole made waves in the industry back in January when he said youth sports was the baseball entertainment juggernaut’s “next frontier” on social media. He also threw down some big numbers — 1M kids playing Banana Ball and a “Banana Ball World Series” with 30K in attendance.
So where do things stand? Buying Sandlot recently sat down with Banana Ball Chief of Staff and former Little League International executive Nina Johnson, who is overseeing the Bananas’ youth effort, to discuss the Bananas’ plans, her thoughts on the industry and more.
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So we bring to you, the reader, 5 things we learned from our conversation with Nina Johnson.
Here are our big takeaways from the conversation:
1) Bananas Are Still Formulating A Gameplan
"There is an interest for kids to get involved in Banana Ball. Just like we're continuing to develop this sport that we're in, we're also trying to figure out what our role is in the youth space," Johnson said.
"We know that we have people that are interested in it. We know that our players are interested in it. We've tried a couple of different things over the years and we're still navigating it. Our intention at this point is just to get as many kids playing as possible."
The Bananas' current youth lineup:
3-hour, pop-up camps at tour stops -- 7 of 12 completed so far
2-day camps at Grayson Stadium in Savannah
4-day Banana Ball U-Savannah Experience event in late July
"I think at this point we haven't ruled anything out," Johnson said, acknowledging she would eventually like to see the Bananas launch a youth league.
2) Authenticity And Control Are Key
The Bananas' first foray into youth sports was a 2024 tournament in Cleveland where it partnered with Athletx Sports Group.
The event -- which predated Johnson's arrival -- went well. But the Bananas came away believing it could have been better if they had full control, Johnson said.
"We would really want as much control over the experience as possible. I think we've learned when we have outsourced things, it just hasn't worked well because we have to rely on those other companies and their investors and their partners, and that often loses sight of the fan.
“That's why we do so much in house -- because we're able to keep our fans at the center of everything that we do. Anytime we've outsourced, maybe it hasn't been bad necessarily, but it's just not up to our expectation.
“The reason [the pop-up camps] are going so well is that they're run by our staff, our players and our coaches show up.
“Is it a heavy lift? It is right now for the small amount of kids we're impacting. But every one of the kids that is coming to our events walk away having had the best time of their life. And so anything that we do in that youth space, we want to make sure that we don't lose sight of that. ... That's probably our biggest struggle with the youth programming right now is how we scale that with the staff that we have. We're just not set up right now with a youth staff necessarily to run those things."
Anyone who attends a Banana Ball game enters knowing what to expect, Johnson said. They want the same to be the case for youth events -- even if that limits what is possible early on. The Bananas actively combat “rogue” Banana Ball tournaments run by third parties without permission for this reason.
"We're very protective of our brand," Johnson said. "People will go to these tournaments and they're promised tickets or appearances by our players. And then when that doesn't happen, then they're mad and they reach out to us. We want to make sure that the experience that people are having when they think of Banana Ball and they think of Fans First Entertainment is a consistent one. It lives up to our expectations. And at this time, the only way that we can really do that is if we're running these events ourselves."
3) Why Free Is Not Always A Good Idea
The Bananas' youth offerings are pretty affordable -- pop-up camps cost $100 and the Banana Ball U event is about $600.
Johnson said access is a priority, but she also echoed a sentiment we previously heard from Upward Sports' Travis Vaughn, who advises church-based leagues to refrain from undercutting high-quality local secular platforms on price.
The logic: If costs are that low, families will perceive the church's platform as inferior or less worthy of commitment.
"Not that we don't want to do things for free, but often times when you offer things for free, people will sign up and then don't show up," Johnson said. "We need to be able to plan for these things as well. While we'd love to do things for free, we'd like there just to be some kind of commitment as we're doing them. ... When you try to offer it for everybody, sometimes you just don't do it well."
4) Challenges Of Community-Based Sports
A local league is only as good as the boots on the ground.
"[Little League] had this great framework for programming, but the experience that each child had was dependent upon the volunteers locally running that program.
"It was different from community to community. Even though we had this framework, there still needed to be some flexibility. The quality of the coaches in each league was directly related to the experience the kid had. The amount of organization, the structure, the concessions, everything from start to finish really impacted that experience.
"We provided the resources, we provided the people, we provided the training, but whether or not they took advantage of that to make their program better was really up to them. So that was always a wild card."
Johnson said LLI often had conversations about whether the rigid structure necessary to operate the Little League World Series was hindering base-of-the-pyramid participation.
Rules also needed to evolve as society has -- i.e. the rise of travel ball and changing geographic eligibility rules to allow more flexibility for families.
5) The Onus Is On Parents
For those of you that have never spent the summer in the Southeast: There is a lot of rain and thunder almost every night.
Weather impacted the Bananas' tournament event last year and forced them to rework the schedule and abandon some of the planned competitive games. The only people who had an issue, Johnson said, were the parents.
"Often times as parents taste a little bit of that competitiveness, kind of the Banana Ball spirit goes out the window," she said.
Johnson added she has seen a lot of "fear-based" decisions by parents when it comes to youth sports and compared the state of the industry to a popular internet gag.
"You know the Spider Man meme where everybody's kind of pointing fingers at each other as to why something's broken? That's youth sports, right?
“You have parents saying, 'Well, we do this because you tell us we have to.' You have administrators and coaches saying, 'We do because of you.' All these fingers are pointing. And we really need to get everybody moving in the same direction. And I think some of that is just deprogramming people and to think about youth sports in a different way.
“We have all the data and we talk to kids, we ask them what they want. And then they tell us and then we as adults say, 'Hmm, I don't think that's really what you want. You want this, right?' Kids just want to have fun."
Johnson also echoed what Rush Soccer CEO Justin Miller said at the Buying Sandlot Summit: Parents have agency.
"At the end of the day, I think parents are ultimately responsible. We're the decision makers for what our kids participate in,” she said.
“We do it with all of this outsider noise, everybody telling us what's best for our kids. But at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to make sure that the programming that we're signing our kids up for is what we're looking for, is in line with the experience that we want them to have. But as organizers and providers, we need to make sure we're also listening to parents and we're listening to the data and we're providing programming that's best for kids."
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Good game.