Jesse Cole

Owner, Banana Ball Championship League and the Savannah Bananas | Founder, Fans First Entertainment

About

Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and the owner of the Banana Ball Championship League, including the world-famous Savannah Bananas as well as the Party Animals, Firefighters, Texas Tailgaters, Loco Beach Coconuts, and Indianapolis Clowns.

With the mantra “Fans First. Entertain Always”, the Bananas are on a mission to Make Baseball Fun by creating the Greatest Show in Sports. The team has sold out every game since their inaugural season in Savannah and has since grown a ticket waitlist of millions of fans from all over the world.

With more than 35 million social media followers and features on such outlets as The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, HBO Real Sports, and 60 Minutes, in addition to Bananaland, a five-part documentary original series on ESPN+, Banana Ball is just getting started.

Jesse is the proud inventor of the fastest and most entertaining game of baseball, Banana Ball. Banana Ball puts a fun twist on traditional baseball with new rules featuring a two-hour time limit, no walks, no bunting, no stepping out of the box, no mound visits and best of all, fans can catch a foul ball for an out.

He is the not-so-proud promoter of the Grandma Beauty Pageant, the Human Horse Race, the Living Pinata, and Flatulence Fun Night.

In addition to the wildly successful Banana Ball, Jesse continues to create raving fans all over the world as a bestselling author of Fans First and Find Your Yellow Tux, and as a highly sought-after international keynote speaker for some of the world’s largest and most respected organizations.

Most of all, Jesse is a raving fan of his wife, Emily, his 3 kids, and peerless promoters like Walt Disney and PT Barnum.

Speech Titles

The Fans First Way: The 5 E’s To Create Raving Fans

How To Design the Ultimate Customer Experience: 3 Words That Will Transform Your Business

MEDIA

Related Speakers

Award-winning Marketer | Former Head of Strategy at Wieden + Kennedy | Professor at Michigan’s Ross School of Business

James Beard-Winning Restaurateur | Founder & Executive Chairman, Union Square Hospitality Group

Hospitality Thought leader, Entrepreneur, Executive Producer & Host of Bar Rescue, Founder of Taffer’s Tavern & Taffer’s Browned Butter Bourbon

Organizational Psychologist and Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University

© 2026 United Talent Rights Reserved.

 VERSION NEXT-PUBLIC-VERSION-NUMBER