Before his entertaining, insightful keynote at PRSA ICON 2026 on Oct. 18 at the Orlando World Center Marriott, Tyler Gillum spoke with PRsay about the Savannah Bananas’ rapid growth, plans to take Banana Ball international, and the importance of creating a workplace that encourages unconventional ideas.
Gillum, who serves as head coach of the Bananas, also discussed the challenges of introducing unfamiliar concepts to audiences, keeping an expanding organization focused on a shared mission and turning a simple philosophy — fans first — into everyday actions.
Throughout the conversation, he returned to lessons that extend well beyond baseball: Communicate a clear vision, explain what you’re doing and why, and give people the freedom to try something new, even when it might not work.
Banana Ball just announced that it is expanding, with games planned in Mexico and Canada next year. What does that milestone mean for the organization?
We’re finally going international. We called it the One City World Tour back in 2021, and everybody said we were crazy. How can you call something a world tour when you’re not even leaving the country?
But it was about the vision. One city was our first test, and the world tour represented where we wanted to go. We wanted to inspire people with that vision of the future.
Now, in due time, we’re getting there.
One of the more intriguing announcements involves Notre Dame Stadium, where the teams will switch fields between innings. How will that work?
That announcement caused some confusion. It’s not two games. It’s one game with two teams. We’re just switching fields every inning.
We test a lot of things, and this is one of our biggest tests. We’ve been envisioning it for a couple of years. We announced it as Banana Ball 360, but I don’t think the concept came across clearly to viewers or to people on Twitter and Instagram. Some assumed there would be four teams playing.No. It’s two teams switching fields every inning.
The goal is to put fans first. If you’re sitting in center field for one inning, you’ll be behind home plate the next. Everybody gets a great view.
That’s a good example of questioning assumptions about how something has always been done. What can communications professionals learn from that approach, particularly when introducing an unfamiliar idea to an audience?
First, you have to have the courage to be misunderstood when you’re doing something no one has done before.
And when you do that, you have to educate people along the way. If you don’t educate people, you leave a void, and everybody will just make something up. They’ll assume something based on what they think it is.
The goal is to keep talking about your vision and educating people about what something is — and what it isn’t.
As we’ve created Banana Ball, we’ve had to post a lot of videos explaining what it is, and what it isn’t. But the more people come to our games and experience it in person, the more they understand.
One of the coolest things to watch over the years is how our fans have become educators. When other fans have questions, they can answer those questions for us.
As we grow and evolve, things are always changing. It all starts with a vision. Then you have to communicate that vision with clarity. Clarity is important.
Everything we do is fans first. It’s a pretty simple philosophy.
With that clarity, you can move faster, and people can understand what you’re trying to accomplish. We also try to keep things simple, so they aren’t confusing. That’s an important piece.
PR professionals often talk about the importance of an organization speaking with one voice. As Banana Ball expands, how do you make sure everyone — from leadership to the players — understands and delivers the same fan-first experience?
Culture is everything for us. It starts with Jesse Cole, our co-owner, our front office and our president, Jared Orton.
Back in 2017, I joined a Zoom call with Jesse for the first time. He was wearing his all-yellow tuxedo. He said, “I want to create the greatest show in sports.” At that time, Banana Ball didn’t exist.
Everything starts with vision and clarity, and it starts at the top.
You have to be clear about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and who you’re doing it for. Then you have to communicate that message to everybody who’s on the bus with you. When people understand where you’re going, they can execute.
One of my favorite stories goes back to 2016.
We had a player from Georgia named Logan Moody. He was a college freshman, and it was his first game with us. He’d only been in Bananaland for three days. But on day one, we always do Banana Orientation. We talk about the vision — where we were, where we are, and where we’re going.
He understood what fans first meant.
At that first game, Jesse went to the top of the stands and met a family celebrating the life of a loved one. A woman stopped him and said she’d love to get an autograph from one of our players, Logan Moody. Her late husband was also named Logan Moody. He had recently passed away, and he’d always celebrated Opening Day at that ballpark. The family had come to remember him. She wanted an autograph from the player who shared his name.
Logan wasn’t there that day, but his brother was. Both brothers played on the team.
Jesse went down to the dugout, explained the situation, and asked the brother if he’d spend some time with the family. He took a baseball, had everybody sign it, brought it to the family, and sat with them for a couple of innings.
When he returned, Jesse asked how it went. He said it was awesome and thanked Jesse for making it happen. And when Jesse asked about the family, the response came back to something we always talk about: Everything we do is fans first.
We needed to spend time with them.
As a player, you naturally think about the game. But in that moment, it was about those fans. And those fans will never forget it. Those moments are really important.
Our company’s name is Fans First Entertainment. We tell stories often about what it means to put fans first, and I think the behaviors follow. It’s about simplicity and consistently reinforcing the message.
How do you create a workplace where people feel comfortable proposing unconventional ideas — even ones that might sound a little crazy at first?
You start with a guy in a yellow tuxedo who permits you to be crazy, right?
We test 10 to 15 new things at every single game. So we already expect to keep coming up with new ideas.
That starts on Tuesdays. We have something called Ideapalooza, where literally everybody, from the owners to the interns, comes up with ideas. Then we take the best ideas and put them into a script. We edit them Thursday and Friday, then put them into the games over the weekend.
Everybody has a role in coming up with new ideas. We always say that if we stop coming up with ideas, we’re basically going to become extinct.
So the goal is to generate new ideas every week.
And honestly, we make fun of ourselves a lot because we come up with plenty of dumb ideas. We’ll say, “Yeah, that one didn’t work.” But a lot of them do.
Here, Gillum answers several quick-fire questions:
John Elsasser is PRSA’s publications director.
Photo by Albert Chau
The post PRSA ICON Q&A: Tyler Gillum on Putting Fans First and Making Room for Big Ideas first appeared on PRsay.