Previously Recorded: Join me LIVE with Dr. Cody T. Havard (Professor of Sport Commerce, host of Being a Fan of Disney) as we dive into the wild world of Banana Ball, the rise of the Savannah Bananas, and why their over-the-top showmanship feels surprisingly… Disney. We’ll explore how Banana Ball grew from a collegiate summer team into a full-blown entertainment machine selling out NFL stadiums — and what makes it such a natural fit for Disney+, ESPN+, and Disney’s evolving sports strategy.
We’ll also cover the latest Disney collabs, news, and synergy moments, and later in the stream Cody will share his new book “The Perspective Files.”
00:12 --> 00:55 We have this coterie of rich franchises, the company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible. It's what they hope to do here, to really develop something that, well, it's just more than an entertainment enterprise. It's something that contributes in many other ways.
00:58 --> 01:42 Foreign. Hey, this is Synergy Loves Company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. So you can feel connected to Disney even when you can't be at the parks. I'm Eric and today we're live. So thanks for keeping me company and make sure to drop a comment or a question and, you know, let me know that you're here so I can say hi. But actually, it's not just me today. It's not just me. Nope. I'm being joined by Dr. Cody Havard and he's. He's an expert on fandom, rivalry, sports, and of course, Disney, because he's the host of the Being a Fan of Disney podcast. Cody, welcome back to the show.
01:43 --> 01:46 Thanks, Eric. It's fun having me again.
01:47 --> 02:13 Yeah, no, it's exciting to have you here because we have a lot of good sports stuff to talk about and that's kind of one of your expertise pieces, that sports rivalry stuff. So I'm excited to hear what you have to tell me. You got a little bit back there behind you right now, some of that banana ball stuff we're going to get into later on in the show. And I'm actually not that knowledgeable of it, so I'm looking forward to that conversation.
02:13 --> 02:16 Awesome. Yeah, yeah.
02:16 --> 03:35 So let's first get into some news stories. We'll keep it in that realm of sports and we'll get into this soon. All right, so the first one we're going to do here is that Disney Imagineers are rebuilding LA parks after the wildfires. Disney's putting up the creative muscle towards wildfire recovery in Los Angeles. As part of a $15 million commitment, the company's investing 5 to rebuild Altadena's Charles White park, which was destroyed earlier this year. So the Disney Imagineers, some of whom even lost their own homes in the fires, are designing a new community center, a playground with Disney style interactive elements, an outdoor amphitheater for local events. So it's kind of cool. The revitalized space is going to open in 2026 alongside work in two additional parks that they're going to work on. We could probably see the plans for Those pretty soon and they're going to plan some events in these parks, like maybe a Christmas tree lighting and all sorts of cool stuff like that. So it's a little Disney magic helping to rebuild la. I think it looks really cool. I don't know exactly what it, it kind of reminds me of like a Bugs Land kind of look. What, what do you think it.
03:35 --> 04:25 Yeah, it does. It's. It's a really cool thing that they're doing. I mean they're, you know, the, the corporate social responsibility, rebuilt, rebuilding communities and everything is really cool. It also, it makes me think of when somebody goes to this park, I'm sure, you know, they're not gonna like Disney sign that says like you're entering a Disney park or whatever. But if you are going to this park and you're on the fence about, hey, should we go to Disneyland or Walt Disney World or plan a vacation or whatever, and you go and they. You have a good experience here that ultimately, you know, kind of makes you want to do that more, you know. So I think it's really, really cool and it's awesome looking.
04:25 --> 04:50 Yeah, I think it's a really neat. That, that's a good, A really cool point. A really neat point too that it like kind of is that little, it's got a little bit of advertising in it. Even though they are doing their like philanthropic kind of thing and like rebuilding this park, which is kind of cool, I would love for them to, to build more parks. I, Yeah, I want to see what the interactive elements turn out to be. And like they have two more.
04:50 --> 04:51 More.
04:51 --> 05:04 I wonder if they're going to be like a repeat of just this one over again with like, kind of like the pine cone playground kind of look and the clovers and stuff. Or if it's going to be something totally different in each community. Yeah, definitely.
05:04 --> 05:41 Like, you know what it makes me think, remember what you remember Disney stores, like going to actual Disney stores in the mall. Yes. Those, those were the best advertisements for being a Disney fan, for wanting to go to a Disney park because you could go to those stores and you could see the, in like the, the figures and everything they had at the top of the, you know, at the, toward the ceiling of the stores. Those are the same ones that you would see in World of Disney.
05:42 --> 05:43 Yeah.
05:43 --> 05:49 And it was just such a cool way for people to be able to experience Disney.
05:52 --> 06:01 Yeah. It's like whenever we can have that little bit of Disney like close to home, that's like the, the best. So.
06:01 --> 07:13 Yeah. Yeah, it, it Made me, I think maybe there's one or two stores that are still open. It made me sad from a fan perspective, but also like just, you know, from a business and strategic perspective. I was like, this is, you're, you're giving up a huge advertising stream for, you know, for the company that now there, there are fewer and fewer ways for somebody to kind of reach out and touch Disney without going to the parks. And as everybody knows, it's getting more and more expensive to be able to go and do that. So maybe things like this and, and if they, you know, maybe an idea would be, hey, let's ex. Maybe expand these across the country where they're just, they are like municipal parks. And that could be a way to compete in a small way to. With what Universal is doing with some of their regional parks. You know, they're opening one in Frisco for kids. They're opening one in Vegas for. That's like the horror nights for adults and things, right? This could be a way to compete with that on some level.
07:14 --> 08:50 Yeah, no, I would, I, I definitely. It's like one of those things where like, if I'm in the area, I would love to see a Disney park. So it's like, yeah, bring them, bring them out by us. And yeah, it is really cool. Especially too since a lot of the imagineers and some of the employees might even live in these neighborhoods where they're doing. Yes too. It's like, you know, their own, their own thing. All right, let's get to our next story, which this one's a big one. Disney and YouTube TV finally, they finally made up last week. After more than two weeks of all those blacked out channels on YouTube TV, all the angry sports fans when they couldn't watch college football and Monday Night football, Disney and YouTube TV has finally stopped fighting and agreed to work together again. Yes. Disney announced a multi year distribution deal that brings the full LineUp back to YouTube TV, including ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel, FX, National Geographic, all those things that people were missing out on, yelling about on social media. And the agreement also tosses in this bonus where subscribers of YouTube TV will get access to ESPN, new streaming service that unlimited plans. So Disney networks are already coming back online just in time for football this weekend, which means the pieces return to the living rooms everywhere, at least for now. So this was exciting. I am a YouTube TV user, so it was, it was nice to get Disney stuff back. But. Yeah, no, I know you said you, you had recently been talking a lot about this deal, kind of in an event that you were, you were at. So what do you have to say about this big deal here?
08:51 --> 08:57 Yeah, I, you know, when we were talking about it in the marketing classes that I teach.
09:01 --> 09:07 Oh, I may have dropped you there. Oh, there we go.
09:09 --> 10:00 Blacked out on Spectrum, one of the big things that Spectrum wanted was for their subscribers to be able to get access to Disney Plus. So that sounds like, you know, what YouTube TV wanted now especially. And I don't know if they got access to, to Disney plus, but it sounds like they're getting access to the, to the ESPN app, the new ESPN app. And you know, so that's, that is ultimately a win for YouTube TV and I would think probably a little bit better for YouTube TV than the Walt Disney Company. However, you know, Disney does also get to have more people watching this ESPN standalone service. And I'm not, because I'm not sure. I haven't seen the numbers how many people are doing that so far. So this could be a really, really good thing for the company as well.
10:01 --> 10:59 Well, it helps that subscriber churn, right? Like if you get a bunch of people who have access through ESPN tv, like that kind of helps lock them in for the long term too, if they could get to, I mean, they get to count those as subscribers. So it's like pretty awesome. And then like with all of the. I know I recently, I. This one was exciting because I recently did a, an episode on ESPN and their connection to Disney and I planned it before it even. All this happened and I reported it when there was still like no deal. And by the time I was editing it like a day or two later, there was already like a deal in the works. And I was like, do I go back and re record the end? So I was like, ah, it still kind of sounds ambiguous enough that I'll just leave it be. But like all the deals that ty saying deal so many times, all the deals that ESPN has worked with, like NFL and NBA and all that kind of stuff, it's. It's like there's going to be a lot of content there on, on YouTube TV through this, this Disney deal.
11:00 --> 11:05 Yeah. And, and I have to say I have not listened to your espn.
11:06 --> 11:08 That's okay. Now you got something to listen to next.
11:08 --> 11:18 No. Yeah, when I'm, I imagine in that episode you talked a lot about the purchase of Capital Cities abc, right?
11:18 --> 11:38 Yes, that came out a lot in there in kind of the series that was, that was up in there for sure. But yeah, I kind of focused more on the NFL and like they're kind of, they're kind of deal with Disney because that was the big one when, when new ESPN app launched. So I kind of crossed in the NFL a lot.
11:39 --> 12:37 I, I feel like for me, I feel like that ABC Capital City's purchase or acquisition in 96 was I think the most important purchase that the company made when, when they. Because in a large part a large reason why they did it was because of espn because every cable subscriber still pays for ESPN regardless if they ever watch the channels or not. And so that brought so much money into the company that really allowed the company to do a lot of things in their parts. It also allowed, you know, for future acquisitions like Pixar and Lucasfilm, Marvel, all of these other things. It kind of, it kind of opened the door to a lot of things for the company. So I have always thought that is possibly or probably the most important purchase the company ever has ever made.
12:39 --> 13:29 I, I totally agree with you. I feel like I've done quite a few topics on Synergy Love's company that go back to that deal also because I just love talking about Michael Eisner and that's like his signature big deal that he's done. But yeah, no, it's done, it's done a lot. And I mean the deals with then like, like that, you know, it opens the doors to like you said, all those other ones and then like ESPN itself and like all those deals and you were even telling, telling me a little bit more about like the N MLB deal that ESPN brokered like in last week since like some of this went down. There's even this big new MLB deal. So baseball, baseball is not necessarily my go to sport. So like that's where I'm like hey, you got to tell me more about ESPN and Major League Baseball.
13:30 --> 17:04 Yeah. So I was, I was actually this last week I was attending a conference. It was actually about themed entertainment of all things, but nice. I, I was. So I was in Orlando, that's where the conference was and I actually was walking in the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday when I saw the news break about ESPN and Major League Baseball signing a new three year deal. So if people don't know, it was probably three or four months ago, ESPN and Disney or I should say ESPN and Major League Baseball had a joint announcement they were ending their relationship after this season. So there was no longer going to be Sunday Night Baseball and ESPN starting in the 2026 season. And when that happened, I remember having a lot of conferences about well, ESPN flagship, this new ESPN app is about to launch. So what they're really trying to do is they're trying to make a new deal for that. They're trying to get more people to watch this ESPN app. And so what ended up happening then? I had heard rumors that ESPN was actually, they wanted access to MLB TV which is, that is the, the like basically streaming subscription that baseball fans can purchase and they can watch all out of market games that like if you live, if your favorite team is out of market for you, then you watch most or all of their baseball games on Mob tv. And so that was what this deal was. It was a new announcement with it. It includes NBC and Peacock is getting some games. Netflix is getting some games. I think Netflix might actually be getting like the, some of the opening day games. But ESPN is would be getting what I think would be considered the A package. Although it seems a little bit different. They actually, ESPN is actually only going to air I think 30 Major League Baseball games next season or, or over the next three every season for the next three years. However, they now have access to Major League Baseball or MLB TV streaming service. I just said so what that means and I've read different things that, that ESPN is actually, they have some ownership over it now which would be really, really interesting. I've also read that they essentially have the opportunity to have, have people purchase Major League Baseball or MLB TV through the ESPN app. So MLB TV I think is about $150 a season or $150 a year if you purchase through MLB TV. So I don't know if it is going to be something that's an additional purchase in the ESPN app or if you are somehow going to get access, maybe even you know like a discounted rate if you purchase through the ESPN app or anything. So it'll be really, really interesting to see what happens this next year. And I, I watch Mob TV a lot. So it'll also be interesting to see kind of you, you have access on Mob TV to a lot of different things. It'll be interesting to see if you get that with, with the ESPN app as well.
17:06 --> 17:50 Yeah, no, because I mean that I going back to like the deal like it'll be, it would just kind of pile more and more awesomeness onto that. So that like you know, then you see with like the deals with the NFL like if Sunday Ticket got involved like ESPN could be trying to get into a lot of, a lot of those different, those different big packages which could be, you know, they become the one stop shop for sports that's kind of always been that ESPN goal to become the place for sports. So that's. No, that's pretty impressive. That MLB deal. I did see some about it but I didn't, I didn't get as deep into it as kind of, you know, looking at the larger implications. So that, that's pretty neat.
17:51 --> 18:48 Yeah, I've, I've, I've spoken about it a few times on being a fan of Disney, the podcast like about kind of what I thought was going to happen. And it's not like, it's not like I'm you know, doing saying things that other people aren't saying. It's a lot of people were, were thinking this and the trade magazines had been reporting this for a while. So it is really impressive to hear that they. A deal has been announced and you know, it, it's. It was announced about a week and a half or two weeks after almost three weeks after the conclusion of probably possibly the most popular World Series for Major League Baseball in a long time. There were a lot of people that were watching the World Series and so the league and was. The league was able to capitalize off of that. And in this case I think you know, Disney is as well through espn.
18:49 --> 20:21 Oh yeah, so no, that'll be, it'll be nice to see what happens in the future with that. And you know, I mean baseball's America's pastime but there's another sport Disney got into this past weekend and that is Formula One, which took over Las Vegas. And Disney was like a big player in this. Earlier this summer when I did a live stream, I did some news, I talked about how they were going to be part of this. But now yesterday the event actually happened. So like Disney showed up to Formula one this weekend in Las Vegas and didn't just slap their logo on the banner, they Disneyfied the entire track that you can see the sphere. I got a picture up there where it had the, the Disney logo. Disney X Formula 1. And so like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, they like, they were all out there greeting fans, walking just like it was Main Street USA here, here on the racetrack and the Disneyland band was part of it and performed the national anthem and the characters joined the post race celebrations at the Bellagio fountain. It was kind of like a little mini fantasmic in a way. So the race also kicked off that two year partnership that you know, Disney and F1 together. So yeah, in America F1 has gone full theme park. And judging by the crowds, I didn't think anyone's complaining about It. So yeah, I don't know. I. Racing is one of those things. Well, Formula One racing is not necessarily the biggest sport in the US but it is growing and it's. It's definitely big internationally. So it's kind of an interesting strategic move for Disney to get involved.
20:22 --> 20:49 Yeah. They. Because of the success or the popularity of F1, especially outside of the United States, I think this is a really good way to. To. To really bolster their. Their ESPN coverage and their sports coverage outside of the United States. Did you happen to see the. The Bellagio found the video of the Bellagio fountains with. With Mickey in the show?
20:49 --> 20:55 I didn't see the whole show, but I saw some clips of it. So it. I mean it. It's cool stuff. Like.
20:56 --> 20:58 Yeah, it was really neat looking. Yeah.
20:58 --> 21:03 The. The group. I. Because I, I even did some research into this back in the day.
21:03 --> 21:03 The.
21:03 --> 21:28 The organization that designed the Bellagio fountains was started by the guy who did the reverse fountains in Epcot. So like, even the fountains themselves are connected to kind of that Disney fountain technology, which. Yeah. And I mean you. If Bellagio fountains and like World of Color at Disneyland are like siblings in a way. And how they, you know, those fountain shows. So it's like Disney in front of the fountain seem bright. You know, they.
21:28 --> 22:15 They were even like in this video there were. They were able to show like movies or moving images on. Yeah. Bellagio, which was really, really cool and very, you know, very world of color at California Adventure. We we actually over Las Vegas for two days when they were putting all of this up. And I mean it was. It was really difficult to get around the Strip, but because every. Everything was. Was closed down. Getting ready for this race. But. And like, you know, one of the things like when we went to see the Bellagio fountains, we actually. You had to watch it from the hotel instead of like be able to watch it on the Strip like you usually are because that big structure was. Some of it was already up, you know, so.
22:17 --> 22:24 Yeah, no, it's. It's cool. And it's interesting that, you know, Disney's getting in kind of on the ground floor with this one.
22:25 --> 22:25 Yeah.
22:25 --> 22:32 And it's Disney. It's not like it's just espn. It's like a full like the whole company getting involved, which is kind of cool.
22:32 --> 22:32 Yeah.
22:34 --> 23:39 All right. The last one. The last story we have is sports again, but it's the one. This is that football's my sport. That's the one I like to watch. So Monsters Fun day football is coming up. It's this Monday Night Football game is going to look a little different because espn, Disney, Pixar and the NFL are teaming up for Monster Fun Day Football, a real time animated broadcast set inside Monstropolis or the World of Monsters Inc. Players from the Eagles and the Chargers will appear as animated versions of themselves using live motion tracking. And of course, all those NFL Next Gen stats. Fans will see Mike and Sully in the mix too. Familiar monsters for Monsters Inc. Characters roaming the sidelines, and even Roz reporting because of course, she's always watching. It's the third year Disney has turned a real NFL game into an animated one, following Toy Story and then the Simpsons. So you could catch it on December 8th on ESPN2, Disney plus and the Disney Channel. And then they always have it streaming afterwards. Disney XD has it too, so it's going to be all over the place. I kind of like these, although I don't feel like I can watch a whole game like this.
23:40 --> 23:58 I really like them. We actually spend a lot of time talking about these in class as well and I've written about them. And also we, we actually, students have an assignment where they can propose a alternate broadcast.
23:59 --> 24:00 That's cool.
24:01 --> 25:34 And so, you know, they first started doing this with the NHL a few years ago with Big City Greens Classic. And then the, then they had the Toy Story Football Fun Day. And that was, you know, that was a, that was one of the London games. So it actually aired about 9 o' clock here in the United States last year when they did the Simpsons, that was kind of a big step because it was Monday Night Football and now, you know, this being Monday Night Football as well. Last year they also did the, the Christmas Day NBA game. The spurs and the Knicks, they, they had play on. It looked like they were playing on Main Street USA at Walt Disney World. But I really, really like watching these. And what's really cool is afterwards if you look on YouTube or you look on social media anywhere, people have kind of done a split screen of the, the broadcast that everybody watches and then the alternate broadcast. And so it's really, really cool. And these usually have, you know, like a 20 or 30 second delay. So they can, they can right, kind of add characters or add drama if they need to, but they are really cool there. I don't, I can also say I haven't sat down and watched a whole one either. Like I, I haven't watched a whole. But however, I also don't sit down and I'm not able to sit down and watch a whole NFL game from Gotcha either. Unless it's the Super Bowl. You see.
25:34 --> 25:35 Okay.
25:35 --> 26:21 Yeah, these are fun. The one thing that I think is interesting is they're. They're, you know, they're. They're opening Monstropolis at Pel. Or, I'm sorry, at Hollywood Studios. I'm a little interested that they're doing this game now rather than. I don't know when Monstropolis is supposed to open, when Monsters open at Hollywood Studios, but I wonder if during this game they're going to have some type of preview of that land. I kind of figured they would possibly use Monsters when it was closer to the opening of that land. So then it could be like an advertisement for go visit that land at Hollywood Studios. That's not going to open for another.
26:21 --> 26:44 No. So I wonder too, if it's almost just like we're gonna start re. Like, it's been a while since a monsters movie has come out. So, like, we're reacquainting the public with the characters and kind of keeping them in, you know, in your vision so that when we do open this soon, you're going to remember this game, and that's going to be a. A closer touch point.
26:44 --> 26:45 Yeah.
26:45 --> 28:15 Because it has been a little bit. But yeah, I kind of had the same thought. Like, I wonder how. How strategically this is connected to that, because you definitely know it is. Nothing happens in isolation with Disney, so. But no, these are cool. I'll usually flip between and I'll definitely flip onto this one. But we were talking. We were talking about some interesting characters in sports, and I think it's then time that we have to get into our feature presentation and talk about some interesting characters in baseball. Talk about Banana Ball. Let's do it. So you. You. You and I kind of have been messaging each other back and forth a little bit about this for a while because you've been talking about it on your show, and whenever I see it pop up on your show, because we've been kind of going back and forth with it, I definitely listen. I'm like, I need to. To figure out what he's. What he's talking about, because Banana Ball and the Savannah Bananas are something that I don't. I don't really know too much about them. I know. I like, my thought of them is like, they're like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, but I know it goes deeper than that. So let's. Let's get into it for, like, anyone brand new to the Savannah Bananas. Like, like me. What exactly is Banana Ball. What made their approach immediately feel Disney to you? Because that's where started talking about.
28:16 --> 28:21 Yeah, and I'll, I'll try to make it brief, which, which I'm not good at making anything brief.
28:21 --> 28:22 That's okay.
28:24 --> 31:51 So basically the, the Savannah Bananas they started. Excuse me. They started off as one of these college summer leagues. So college players after their, their college seasons are over, several will go play in these. The, These like wooden bat leagues during the summers. And the most popular one is the, the Cape Cod Leap, which is if anybody's ever heard of any. They probably heard of that, but they're. There are these leagues all over the country and basically they exist so that they can. Players can get used to playing with wooden bats. They can get used to playing every day. So it. You, you know, if they are going to play at a higher level like minor league baseball or even major league baseball, they can get used to that. But they also exist so that, that scouts can go and they can see these players and they can see them play with hit with a wooden bat instead of with hit with the, the aluminum or, or metal or composite bats that they hit with during the season. So the, the Savannah Bananas and, and they started as one of these teams and they competed for I think three or four years in the league that they were. They were a part of Jesse Cole. I can't remember exactly when they bought the team. Him and his wife bought the team, but basically they wanted to. They. They bought the team in Savannah. They held a contest to see what the. Or no. When they, when they announced that the, the team was going to be called the Bananas. They, you know, they'll say there's. People were questioning what it was. They were, you know, kind of sort of making fun of it in a way. But you know, Jesse called. Hey, they're talking about it like they've never talked it. People haven't talked about this collegiate summer team in such a long time. They happen to play in a really, really old stadium which is called Grayson Stadium, which I, I believe is. It's one of the oldest in the south at least. And so, but what they started doing was they, they started to make Tick Tock videos so that they would. They would do these like fun skits and everything during games. And they started making these videos so that they would get followers. And I mean it exploded. They got a lot of followers over their Tick Tock videos and from there they just kept building to where then they started what they call banana ball. And I believe, I can't remember what year? It was 2021 maybe, or 22. I think it was 21 when they actually stopped playing in the collegiate summer league and they became full time a professional team or professional organization. And so at that point, what they did is they founded a second team. They started a second team, which if people. Well, my chair's blocking it, but they're called the Party Animals and it's also on my hat. So they were. The Party Animals were the, were the second team that would play the Savannah Bananas. However, it was a little bit different than like the, the Harlem Globetrotters where, where they would always play the Washington General, always beat the Washington Generals.
31:51 --> 31:52 Right.
31:52 --> 33:28 The Banana ball is it. It's there. There's no known outcome. They plan everything. They plan the show, they plan the skits, they do all of that. But as far as the game is concerned, it's a, It's. The outcome is very unknown. And as a matter of fact, the, the Party Animals, from a baseball playing, like, perspective have been more successful than the Savannah Bananas over the last several years. And it's one of those things that, you know, the Savannah Bananas have so such a big following now. And the players that have been with the Bananas since the beginning, they have such a big following now that, you know, it. I've. I've often thought it's really interesting. Are they going to start sending some of those players to these other teams and what happens when those players, you know, start aging out of. When they can play baseball as well as some of these younger players? So. But basically they've. Since about 20, 21, they really launched into this Banana Ball, founded the, the party animals in 23. They started the Firefighters, which is over my. Kind of above where I'm pointing. Right. And that was the third team that, that was the third showcase team, I should say. They also, they do have a team called the Visitors that will play each of these things every once in a while. And the Visitors are kind of like the. They're sort of like the tryout team, if you, if you will.
33:28 --> 33:29 Okay.
33:29 --> 35:28 If somebody tries out for banana ball and they're not ready or they don't have kind of the online presence of the players on the Bananas or Party Animals or firefighters, they would go and they would play for the Visitors and they would kind of be able to work out their, their craft and work out their show and kind of what their shtick is going to be. Because each one of these players, the, the purpose is they, they wanted to take baseball and they wanted to make it fun. So Jesse Cole said, what we want to do is look at the parts of the game that are boring, and we want to do something about those. One of the first things that was boring that people said about baseball was how long that bat would take. You know, a person would see a pitch and then it would be 30 seconds or 45 seconds. I mean, before now Major League Baseball has a, has a pitch. Yeah, for that. It could actually be like multiple minutes between each pitch. It was crazy. And so Jesse Cole said, okay, you can't step out of the box unless there's a foul ball. Nobody could step out of the box. The games themselves are two hours. So what that means is they actually don't, they have a running clock the whole time. They don't start an inning after two hours begins or after two hours is over. So if, if inning number nine starts with one hour, 59 minutes, 59 seconds, then they'll play out that inning. Right. So, so they, they are able to have it planned where, where they can get, they do go over two hours occasionally, but. And they, they also, you know, people said they didn't really like walks in baseball. So instead of walks, they call it a four pitch. What is it? A four pitch steel or four pitch. I can't remember what it is. But basically if somebody gets walked, they. A four pitch sprint. They have the chance to run as many bases as they can.
35:29 --> 35:30 Oh, getting out.
35:30 --> 35:51 So the team that walks them. So let's say that the animals are at bat and the bananas walk the party animals. Then the batter from the party animals takes off running to first, second, third, home if he can. And the Savannah bananas, all nine players on the team have to touch the ball. And then so basically, you know, you.
35:51 --> 35:53 Have the pitcher that throw it around.
35:54 --> 36:10 So basically what they do is if there's a wall, the catcher throws down the second base and then everybody kind of goes to second base and they're tossing the ball around. And usually they've gotten so good that usually, you know, the, the batter will get to first base. They usually don't get to second.
36:12 --> 36:12 But.
36:12 --> 38:00 They did, they did a whole bunch of these things to make the game itself faster and make it more attractive. And then they have, they have. Because they started with TikTok videos, they have musical numbers that they do and they have skits that they do. And so you people go to one of these games, and we went to one in Nashville last year, and three hours before the game starts, they open the gates. And I actually just watched a video yesterday where he was talking about this. They actually open the gates, they do a rope drop. Like everybody is lined up. And then for the game. Yeah, yeah, they do a rope drop. Like he, he. And I know you had it in their notes, but he was very inspired by Walt Disney and P.T. barnum. Jesse Cole was. And so they welcome everybody in. The players are out there, the. The, like the players on the field. But then they also have the entertainment players and the entertainment cast. Everyone is out there welcoming into this, like, party three hours before the game starts. And then the. The gates, or I should say, like, you can go to your seat an hour and a half before and as soon as you sit down, it's a show going on. I mean, there's music going the whole time. It is. It's a lot of fun. It. It's a. It also can be a little tiresome because it, it's kind of. It can be overload in some ways, but it is a whole lot of fun to watch these games. And. And so I'll. I'll kind of leave it there and then we can. We can get into what they're kind of how they progressed and what they're doing now and everything.
38:01 --> 38:57 Yeah, for sure. So you even got into it where he's, you know, to Jesse Cole, the founder, said he was inspired by Walt Disney and P.T. barnum. Kind of like that circus aspect, but also that it almost seems like too, like you said, there's a rope drop. There's like he's kind of taken some notes from the Disney experience. So what from like a fan experience standpoint, like, you went there and saw the game. Like, why do you think families and Disney fans respond to banana ball in like, the ways that people don't really respond to traditional baseball anymore? I know I haven't. Like, as like Disney fans really do resonate with banana ball, because the only way I know about it is from like Disney fan and people I follow on social media who are like, posting about the bananas. That's like the first place I heard about it. So it's like through that Disney network is where I, I learned about it. So, like, what do you think it is about like that kind of like that core Disney audience is the same banana ball audience.
38:58 --> 39:06 I mean it very much. You know, you're not going to see Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and the. The Sensational Six there every time? Well, I should say every.
39:06 --> 39:07 Maybe not yet.
39:08 --> 39:14 No, they do well. Well, they have. I mean, they've played it. They played in Anaheim, they played at Angel Stadium and they did a day.
39:14 --> 39:19 At Disneyland too, didn't the bananas showed up. Yeah.
39:19 --> 40:34 This year they're playing again at Angel Stadium. And I think something's gonna happen around that game that we'll talk about here in just a little bit. But they're also, they're, they're playing at World. ESPN Worldwide of Sports, World Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World. So you will see, you know, the Disney characters there, but at most events, you're, you know, you're not going to see those Disney characters. But what you do have, I already mentioned, you have the anticipation of the rope drop, which is. Yeah. When you have to stand in line, you know. And, and he talked about this in the video I saw yesterday. He said, you know, there's, there's one entrance to a Disney park or most Disney parks. EPCOT has multiple entrances, but to most Disney parks, you know, they're especially the, the first ones there were. There was one entrance because they wanted to control people coming and going. They wanted to be able to control the show, you know, at Disneyland or at Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom. They want you to walk under the, the train tracks and see the, the red carpet, if you will. They wanted you to be able to walk down Main Street USA and see the names on the buildings and it be like a opening or closing credits rolling, you know.
40:35 --> 40:35 Right.
40:35 --> 41:36 And so Banana Ball does that. They build this anticipation. And when you walk in, you walk through this line of the players and the, the, the, the owner and the, the entertainment that is there, and everybody is, is out, you know, celebrating, and the players come out and they sign autographs and I mean, they, they, these lines are, are massive that, you know, the players will be out for 30 minutes. So the, the game that we went to in Nashville, the bananas were playing the party animals, and the, the bananas were out for 30 minutes, and the party animals were out for 30 minutes. And it's really, really good. You know, the, the players are able to, they're, they're able to kind of interact and engage with the fans. So. So. Well, I mean, that's part of their job. And it very much is like character meet and greets at a Disney park.
41:36 --> 41:37 Yeah.
41:38 --> 43:12 Where you're able to do this, and they are very, very accessible. They have, they have shows the whole time. So you think about when you go to a Disney park, you know, there are shows throughout the day. That's what they're doing. And they, they have all of these things that they're doing during the game, all of these skits and all of these, all the fun music that they're playing that really gets people engaged and it's hard not to pay attention at a banana ball game. It's, it could be easy, I could say it could be easy not to pay attention to possibly the baseball aspect of it. However, you cannot not pay attention at a banana ball game unless you are just definitely trying to, you know, not have fun and, and just way out of it. Yeah, I mean, when we went to the game, they played at Nissan Stadium, which is where the Tennessee Titans play. I mean that's a 75, 80 seat stadium or whatever. And we were at the top and we were probably 30 rows, 20 rows from the top and they had people up in our section throughout the game interacting and. Yeah, I mean it was really, really, it's a really, really neat experience. And so for Disney fans, that feeling when you go. And the kind of, the most important thing I think a lot of Disney fans feel when they go is that they can let go of other things that are bothering them. You know, they can kind of forget about what they're.
43:12 --> 43:13 Yeah.
43:13 --> 44:05 What they're dealing with and they could just have fun for that game. And that's what it feels like to be at a banana ball game as well. You know, if you go to a Disney park, granted you're there for probably eight to 12 hours. I mean, you know, if you're there in the summer at Disneyland, you're there for 16 hours, which is amazing. Yeah. But you're, if you go to a banana ball game from beginning to end, I mean, you're there from 2 o' clock or let's say 3 o' clock until 10 o', clock, you're there seven hours because they, they do a post game show and they do, you know, post game interactions and everything. And so you really can have this opportunity to create a real or participate in a real diversion from what everything is going on outside of that banana ball. So I think that's why Disney fans really, really like banana ball.
44:07 --> 44:14 Yeah, for sure. No, there's like, the way you're describing, it's a two hour game, but the experience is so much more as far as time.
44:15 --> 44:15 So.
44:15 --> 44:42 And it seems like they really do fill that time with a lot of things. Like I know I've gone to, you know, professional baseball games that you could get there early and there's not much for you to do there. You could watch the players kind of warming up, but it's like, no, they make it the, they make it the spectacle, the experience which sounds. That already sounds better to me. But yeah, as far as. As far as. Yeah, go for it.
44:42 --> 47:16 Oh, well, I would also say, I mean, Minor League Baseball has been doing this a long time where they. They have more interaction during the game and engagement during the game, but Major League Baseball is starting to have more engagement before and during their games as well. And I think, you know, some of that probably has to be attributed to the popularity of something like banana ball and. And what. What. Banana ball and what the bananas. And Jesse Cole will say is it. And Emily Cole is his wife. Co owner will say is it's always fans first. And so I. I believe their company might even be called Fan First Entertainment. I. I'm not sure on that. But they always talk about how, like, fan first is their mission. And so that was one of the original missions of Walt Disney. The person was that, you know, the. The fan or the customer was the most important thing, and the customer experience was the most important thing. And so that's what they try to emulate with banana ball. And it's. I mean, it's really, really cool. And what they're. What they're doing this year with. With this banana Ball Championship League is during the 2025 season, they also added. Or at the end of the 2024 season, they added the Texas Tailgaters. And so then before the 2026 season. And this is what's happening. All right. Now, about a month ago, October 15th, maybe they. They announced. Or maybe November 1st, they announced. The. Is right around then. Sorry, The. They have two new teams, and one team is. I don't know if I can show on my. I don't know where it is exactly on my picture behind me, but one of them is called the. The Loco Beach Coconuts. And so basically, they're gonna kind of be like the east coast team. A lot of their games are on the east coast. And then once my background comes back up, I don't know what happened. Yeah, you'll see there. There's a. A team called the Indianapolis Clowns, which is actually a. They're paying homage to the Indianapolis Clowns of the old Negro Baseball League, which is really, really cool. That is. And so the Indianapolis Clowns were referred to by a lot of people as the. The Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. Like, they would do tricks during their games, and these were during, you know, like.
47:16 --> 47:17 Like actual games.
47:18 --> 48:34 Yeah, so they were. They were doing really, really cool things. And so for the. The sixth team that they introduced is the Indianapolis Clowns, which is really really cool and from, from many perspectives, from a history perspective to, to like inclusion to engagement. It's really, really cool. And they're actually. So that team is going to kind of be the Midwest's team if you will because then you, you have Texas. That's you know, the, the Texas. Their, most of their games are in Texas this year. And so they, they started this championship league that they're, they're calling it Banana Ball Championship League is they're actually, I think each team 60 something games, 68 games, something like that. And they still are traveling around able to. Now I think they're playing maybe in every state in the country which is really, really cool. They've never been able to do it before. And they're actually, they're gonna have like a kind of an opening season tournament in Savannah, Georgia between these six teams and then they're gonna have a preseason championship. Like a preseason or I'm sorry, postseason playoffs.
48:34 --> 48:35 Yeah.
48:35 --> 49:58 With the six teams. And so it'll be really fun to see how it works out. And what they've done over the last week or two weeks now is they're going through their player draft, so. Oh, they had, they had the, the four existing teams. Could I forget how many players they were able to keep? And then fans voted on each team to keep an additional number of players and they actually had a draft. And so in each round of the draft, like the four teams, the four existing teams would pick one player and then the Indianapolis Clowns and the Loco Beach Coconuts would pick two players each so that they could get up to having a Ross similar rosters or the same number roster size for all six teams. So it is, it's going to be really, really fun and really, really interesting to see what happens this year. Like we actually, we are going. They're playing in Memphis at the minor league stadium here in Memphis and it's going to be the Party Animals and the Indianapolis Clowns are playing. So we're going to be able to go see that. And then we're actually going to visit my wife's family in Lincoln, Nebraska and we're going to see two. They're, they're going to play two games in Lincoln, Nebraska. They're playing one in the minor league baseball stadium there and then they're actually playing one in Memorial Stadium, which is where the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team plays.
49:58 --> 49:59 Yeah.
49:59 --> 50:01 So both of those will be really, really fun.
50:01 --> 50:37 Yeah, those are giant venues too. So that's, that's impressive. That's impressive. No, so that like Giant venues filled with people. But like you can also watch these. I'm gonna bring up this, this picture again. You could also watch these. Some, some of them have been shown on ESPN plus and Disney plus, so. And I imagine there's gonna be so many more in the future. So like what makes this such a strong fit for Disney streaming, ESPN flagship strategy, all that like we kind of got into that ESPN stuff a lot earlier. How did the bananas fit into this, do you think? Like what's the, is it a perfect fit for them?
50:38 --> 51:07 I think it is. I mean I guess nothing could actually be a perfect fit, but it's, it's pretty close. It's an, it's a great fit for them because they are in most cases family friendly now. They do, you know, they do some skits that are kind of more made for adults at times. One of the, an interesting thing I've always seen is one of the. Excuse me. Most popular players on the party animals team.
51:08 --> 51:09 Yeah.
51:09 --> 52:07 I think he, I think he has Irish descent and so when he walks up to bat he has like red hair. He's grown out his beard and everything. He wears like, like a, a vest to kind of like sort like Irish or, or colors that. And when he walks up he, he actually like drinks a, a beer. Now. I don't know like if it's alcoholic or non alcoholic. What. But I have thought like, oh, that's kind of interesting. They talk about how it's such a family friendly thing but like one of their main, you know, one of their most popular players is doing this. But so they do things like that, that you know, I guess could be. Some people could watch and be offended by or think it might be a little bit weird. But as far as their fit, I mean they are very, very. They're one, they're, they are more family friendly than you know, a lot of content.
52:08 --> 52:08 True.
52:08 --> 54:11 They also, it's, it's easy because they're two hours and so you know, if you watch a stream and you can str. Like you could stream all of these games that, that people are able to see now on the screen. All of these were on Disney plus and ESPN plus last year. I think before that, the year before that they did maybe six or eight games or four or six games or something like that. They stream everything free on their YouTube channel as well. You can always watch on their YouTube channel. But they, you know it's, it's easy for a provider to plan around because they're two hours. You, you know, it's gonna begin at a certain time, and it's not going to run over much of that two hours. You know, it might have run over five or 10 minutes here or there, but it's also streaming, so you're not having to worry as much about with commercials and things like that. And it, it's pretty much it, it's, you know, it's action the whole time. They don't really have to take a lot of commercial breaks. As a matter of fact, Jesse Cole talked about how they, in, in their stadium, their home stadium in Savannah, Georgia, they actually took down all their advertisements. And so it is really good for someone, for, for the companies that are wanting to show this as well, because it's, it's easier to plan. You're not going to, you're probably not going to see the type of behavior that you might see in the, you know, some of these other sporting events. And then also, I mean, the, you know, media rights in sports is such a big deal that people, the companies pay such huge sums of money for these media rights, and they don't get to own the games. They're not having to pay as much to show banana ball games. Which brings me, brings me to my next point. I don't know if you want me to, to save it or go ahead and.
54:11 --> 54:13 No, go right in. Go right into it.
54:13 --> 54:21 I, I think that at some point this, then this was on the notes. This is why I asked. Yeah.
54:21 --> 54:25 No, and this is where I was gonna go next, too. So I, I appreciate it. Yeah.
54:26 --> 57:52 I think at some point Disney will have some type of ownership package with the Savannah Bananas. Whether they actually purchase the Savannah Bananas or not, or they purchase banana Ball or they just, if they have something else that's going on, I think they're gonna have a much deeper role in the future of the Savannah Bananas and Banana Ball and the Banana Ball Championship League. Because if you go back to what I said with the, the major leagues that ESPN via or Disney via ESPN have to pay these huge media rights to. They pay these huge media rights and they don't get to own those games. If they owned a sport or owned a league, then they actually could show those games in perpetuity. So they could show them whenever they wanted. They could show, you know, as, as replays and things like that, whereas they don't have as much access or ability to do that with these other games. Now Disney has made deals with like, ESPN Media, where now I think they, they own some of Es. I'm sorry, they own some of NFL Media where they do have access to be able to do things like that. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens with this MLB TV thing. But I think within, you know, I've been saying within the next year or two, I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney have some type of additional ownership over Banana Ball. And which brings me like, you know, they. In March is when they're playing in Anaheim again. I'm sure they're going to have another Disneyland day. I can't remember exactly when they're at ESPN Wide World of Sports, but I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, around those dates in particular the one when they're in Anaheim that maybe there's a big announcement dealing with the future of Banana Ball, the Savannah Bananas and Disney. Because if, if the Bananas ever were going to enter into some acquisition agreement, it seems like they are most interested in working with Disney because of the influence like Disney and, and the company has had on the ownership. And I think for Disney, it would be a really, really good idea to be able to do that because then they would be able to show more of these games, games in perpetuity. They would be able to build more kind of engagement around that. They could also, you know, the podcast is called Synergy Loves Company. They could use the synergy of the, the Bananas and, and their parts. They could use them at espn Wilder World of Sports. They could do so many things with the Savannah Bananas that I think would be really, really cool. They already, it was like three or four years ago now. They had a ESPN films, I think, eight series documentary about Banana Ball. And, and so they, they already are in really, really deep with Banana Ball and the Savannah Bananas. I just think it's gonna continue to grow from there. It's going to be exciting to see the future of it.
57:53 --> 58:55 That's kind of like what we were talking about earlier. Even with the parks, like the public parks and the Disney Store, it's like it's. You see a banana ball game on espn, you're probably going to be more excited about going to it in person where, you know, like Major League Baseball, it would be a smaller percentage of people who would see the game on TV and immediately go to. I want to be there where I feel like Banana Ball has a higher conversion rate in that sense because of the draw of that, like the entertainment of it. So, yeah, it kind of fits into that kind of vertical integration situation for Disney. So no, that be. That would be very interesting to see them get into it because, you know, like, for a Time they had Disney, had the Mighty Ducks, Anaheim Ducks and they had the. The Anaheim Angels. So like to get back into sports, like professional sports of some kind would be another kind of back going back to that Eisner era again talking about the. All that stuff. So that would be kind of cool. Well, I would love to see it.
58:56 --> 59:29 One. One thing, one quick thing about the bananas. And then since you brought up like the Ducks and Angels. Yeah, one quick thing about the bananas is when you go to a game, it's. It's cheaper to go to a bananas game than it is to go to a lot of major league baseball games as well. Most banana ball tickets, I think they're like tiered pricing. You don't really get to pick where you are sitting. But it's. Especially if you go to a game in Savannah, Georgia at their stadium, food is actually included in your price of ticket also.
59:29 --> 59:29 Oh.
59:29 --> 01:00:14 So it's like maybe like $60 a ticket, but food is included. Everything. If you think about how much people charge or how much people typically spend on that, that's really, really. That, you know, that's a really, really. It wasn't the case in, in Nashville and there were that. When I was there, I could definitely see, you know, some things that they needed to do. Do they need to kind of work more with the vendors where they're playing their games? Because there were. There were some logistical issues like getting. Where could you get drinks and where could you get food? Like when we were there that. Because they didn't have control over all of that. The venues are the ones that are controlling that. And so there definitely are some things that they could work on with that. But when you brought up the. The. The Ducks and the Angels.
01:00:15 --> 01:00:15 Yeah.
01:00:16 --> 01:02:30 For people who are interested, there's a. It's another ESPN Films documentary. I think it's called Once Upon a Time in Anaheim that's about the Ducks and. And about the company starting the. The Ducks. And it really was started because of that movie like Michael Eisner's kids enjoyed hockey. So they wanted to make the movie. The success of the movie kind of led the NHL into awarding them a franchise that they started. But what's important here is the reason the company stated for selling the Anaheim Ducks and then also selling the Anaheim Angels. What they were called at the time is they were. They felt that the leagues were going into a new media rights negotiation and they felt that might not be viewed positively if one of the major media companies that they were negotiation also own teams within those leagues. Now jump forward about 30 years since those deals have been made. Right now you do have media companies owning teams. And so it could be one, it could be, you know, maybe there would be a different view of the company if they, if they owned major league teams. Again, however, owning something like the Bananas, that gets you into that sport realm, get you into sport ownership. But it is that melding of sport entertainment. Because what they say at the end of each Bananas event is, did you enjoy the show? They don't say, did you enjoy the game? Because you could be a fan of whatever team and they win and you, that's fun. They lose and that's not as fun, I guess. But when you are at one of their shows, you, you're, they're focused on your entertainment value, not just who is winning the game. They don't want people to walk away and not have had a good time because their, their chosen team didn't win. They want it to be part of the show and be, have everyone entertained.
01:02:30 --> 01:03:00 So no, that's, that, that, I mean, that's very Disney. Just making sure everyone there is having a good time. It's kind of one of those back, back to, you know, Disney roots, Walt Disney back in the day at the parks, making sure everyone had a great time. So no, that's, I, it's, it'll be very interesting and I would love to see what Disney would do with it. I don't want to see them get a hold of those prices because we know what Disney does with prices. But so, yeah, like it'll, you know. Yeah.
01:03:00 --> 01:04:58 Here's what's interesting with the, the pricing. And I, I, I'm, you said, I'm glad you reminded me of that because when, when you look at the pricing of the Bananas games and let's say a ticket is $60, but you're there for six or seven hours, that's less than $10 an hour. And actually a couple. Summer 2023, the first time we went to Disneyland, I was standing in line and I was talking to my wife about, I said, you know, I can't remember what we paid per ticket. I think I figured maybe like what I think I said, like maybe 150 or something just to kind of like have a, a neutral or a, kind of a mean or whatever. Yeah. And I said, but if you think about, you know, Disneyland is, it was open for 16 hours the day that we were there. We ended up paying about 775 or 875, whatever that comes out to be an hour to be there. And when you, you know, what's really scary is if they ever start justifying that, like you're only paying true, you're paying less than $10 an hour to be here, then prices could, could go really, really high because it. Or a lot higher because if you think about going to a concert that lasts right. Three hours and some people are paying over a thousand dollars, or you go to, you know, you go to an NBA basketball game that you're probably there for three hours before the game starts and by the time you leave and if it times, you're paying a hundred dollars or more a ticket to go. And so you're, you know, you're, you're paying 25, 30, more than $30 an hour to be there. It's really, really interesting when you think about the price in that perspective. And that's another thing that kind of makes that kind of aligns Banana Ball to Disney is the price per hour is a lot lower than some of these other entertainment options.
01:04:58 --> 01:05:06 True. No, that's a decent, that's an interesting way to put it. But if anyone from Disney hears this. Don't, don't go.
01:05:06 --> 01:05:08 Yeah, it's a scary way to put it all.
01:05:09 --> 01:05:10 Yeah, no, that. Right.
01:05:10 --> 01:05:12 Oh, man, I probably shouldn't have said that.
01:05:13 --> 01:05:31 Right. No, that's okay. It is a, it's a valid point. But no. So like with Banana Ball, I feel like I know a lot more about it now. I'm excited to have a Midwestern team in the Indianapolis Clowns. And like, if a Disney fan wanted to dip their toes into Banana Ball for the first time, where do you think they should get started?
01:05:33 --> 01:09:46 So one, I think you, I believe you can still watch their, some of their reruns on Disney Plus, I believe you still can do that. If you can't, they do have their. You can always watch their games on replay on YouTube, if you, anywhere on social media, Instagram, Tick Tock, Facebook, anything that you can watch, a whole lot of videos, that would be a good place to start. Anyone, if they want to know kind of the history of Banana Ball, watch that ESPN documentary. It's called Banana Land. And that was, that's something that would kind of, it sort of walks people through the whole process of when they first started, when they first bought the college team or the collegiate summer team and then led into what was going on up until, like I said, I think maybe 2021 or 2022 or something like that. So it doesn't include what's happened since then, but those would be some pretty Good places to start to get more information on that. And honestly I wouldn't be surprised there. There will probably be some more documentaries come out. With the success of. Of shows like Ted Lasso, I wouldn't be surprised if there are scripted series that come out about the banana. I mean that's the other thing. If, if, if Disney owned portion or in part some part of the Savannah Bananas. A banana ball. That's a whole other area where they could expand as well as they could have more documentaries, they could have more of the scripted reality or they could have more of the straight scripted series about the bananas as well. I was actually there's a, there's a baseball podcast that I listen to that is. It's led by three women and it's called. They. What are they? Let me look it up real quick. It's something Glove. Where is it Glove? Actually so it's a play on the movie Love actually. So it's actually. And there's a segment in each one of those shows where one of the, one of the hosts talks about like a like a sports romance novel that, that she has read and, and like recommends and actually on one of the more recent episodes she discussed a like a novel based on like the Savannah Bananas esque league. It's not the Savannah Bananas, but like, like one of the, the entertainment teams which just kind of gave me more of a idea that I'm like, you know, it just fits so well that you could have scripted series around these teams and around these players as well. And you know, I mean people will, you know, aside from just it being fun to watch the games, the, some of the play, a lot of the players are very, very engaging. They're very inspirational as well that they, they have a lot of positive messaging for kids that are wanting to play. Especially now that youth baseball has gotten. Has become so intense and kind of driving kids away because of like the intensity level. Like this is a way to just make sure the kids have fun like on, on our, our baseball team in the spring. Like we're going to be trying to do an event that that's you know, kind of more fun than like the traditional tournaments that we play in and everything. And so these are, this is a really good way for the, for kids to be able to see it. And so I think it's just, it's a really good tie in. It would be a really good deal or relationship for Disney to have on, on many, many levels. And I think they would do a really good job in engaging with people through It. And building their fan base as well as building the fan base of Banana Ball.
01:09:48 --> 01:11:05 No, that's. I, I think that's where the cross will definitely come in and that they do have that Venn diagram of fans. There's a lot that could be in the middle, so. No, that would be. I really want to see what happens with it. And definitely my touch point is going to be that documentary because I love a good documentary, so I'm have to check that one out. All right. We do have to shift gears a little bit now that we're all excited about Banana Ball, because usually the. One of the last things I always do on the live streams is do something creative. And so we're going to get into the last segment, which is Thinking Pain for. So in Think and Paint, I always try to do something creative. But you did something very creative. You've written books before, but this one here, I have it in my hands here. The Perspective Files is your first work of fiction. And, and so I, I'm excited to have it here in my hands because it is, it is for a younger audience, like YA audience. And that's kind of my favorite kind of books because that's the librarian space that I'm in. So I already started reading a little bit into the first chapter and I'm, I'm excited you give us a perspective on the Perspective Files.
01:11:06 --> 01:11:18 Yeah. So. And, and thanks for asking the. And anybody who, who's watching that's interested, if you, if you want to see. I don't know if you can see my mouse, but I did try to put up a QR code that you can.
01:11:18 --> 01:11:21 It's like right over your, your left shoulder, our right.
01:11:21 --> 01:15:24 Yeah, but so the Prospectus Files is basically, it was a way to incorporate some of the, the, the main points of research that I have done over my 15 years, 16, 17 years of, of being a researcher into, into group behavior and basically how people treat each other based on the groups that they're. They're part of. And that was kind of, you know, there was this idea last year or a year and a half ago about, you know, how can a lot of this information be read by more people and not necessarily people. You know, people don't really enjoy reading academic articles about research and things like that, like, for sure. And, you know, it builds on kind of that idea of edutainment, which is what, you know, the Walt Disney Company talked about a lot. And what, you know, in particular, the Epcot park was. Epcot center was, when it first opened was this whole idea of edutainment. And so the idea was can I create a narrative that intertwines some of this, the information in a hopefully fun or entertaining way? Definitely not in an academic way for people to, to read more about it. And so what I started doing was that's where the Prospectus files came from. And it was, it's a book about two high school students, high school juniors that they kind of find out they have been recruited into this special organization called Junior Shared Perspectives, which is also. People can go to sharedperspectives.org that's the website that I have that has some of the research and has. I'm adding stories from the Prospectus files on there. I'm going to add more content from the Prospectus files like the, the Easter eggs and everything in the book to that website that people can look at. But they, they find out they've been recruited to this organization that the purpose of the organization is to oversee or monitor people's decisions throughout history. And what starts out as they believe they are just joining an organization that is supposed to watch what people, the decisions people make. Then obviously, you know, it's a three act story where you have the first act where they're, they characters are introduced. The second act is the conflict. And there the conflict actually, excuse me, the conflict actually occurs when they are trying to learn a lesson in 1962 Disneyland. And so that's where the conflict happens. And yeah, kind of gets you into Act 2 and then Act 3 is how they have to resolve the, this problem that is happening. And so what ends up happening is there, there's, there's time travel that's involved. There's location jumping and time slipping is what I call it in the book. And they have to, by the end of the book they have, they have become agents that are responsible for monitoring people's decisions but also preserving historical decisions whether those like making sure those events happen the way they did in history because they find out somebody is trying to change some of those events. And, and we don't necessarily know why that's, that's for subsequent stories and subsequent books, but it's, yeah, it's, it's a lot of fun. And so for, for Disney fans there, there are a lot of Easter eggs in there. I mean this is. You and I are both, we, we both kind of grew up around the same time. So there's a whole lot of Easter eggs to like later 80s, early 90s childhood.
01:15:25 --> 01:15:26 Love it.
01:15:26 --> 01:16:50 But then there's, there's East There's a whole lot of Disney Easter eggs in there as well. Like I said, they go to 1962 Disneyland. The. The culminating event, as you can see on the title, you can see on the COVID actually happens at the 1964 New York World's Fair, which Disney fans know is a very influential event in history because of the. The four pavilions that the Imagine or Wet Enterprises were able to develop at that time. And so it's a real. It's hopefully a fun book that people can read and they can pick up on some of. They can pick up some of the. The research that I've been doing in a fun way, and then they can pick up on a lot of these Easter eggs as well. And the. The other thing that was really cool is when. When I started writing it, I've been able to incorporate people who have been on Being a Fan of Disney, the podcast several times and kind of. So some of the characters that you meet in the book are actually based on real people that are in the Disney community. And for anybody that is interested. Yes, I have. There is a. There's a character that would be based on Eric in the next stories or few stories, so I want to get to that one.
01:16:50 --> 01:16:54 No. Yeah, no, I'm excited about that.
01:16:55 --> 01:17:51 Yeah. Yeah. So it's. It's hopefully. It's hopefully a fun way for people to. To be able to. To get through a. A young reader novel. And, you know, it was. It's my first time that I've written a. A fiction story. And so it was really, really interesting for. For me to see how I write those types of stories, because being a Disney fan, I didn't start out thinking this was. I was going to incorporate Disney into here. But then little by little, I would incorporate more and more and more until it really became, you know, I mean, I. By the end, I could place a whole book, it probably within the Disney sphere and be perfectly happy with it as well. But I do try to mix up a lot of popular culture references in there for people. Nice.
01:17:52 --> 01:17:55 Yeah. We can't help it. We have to put the Disney in there.
01:17:55 --> 01:17:55 Yeah.
01:17:57 --> 01:18:05 No, I. I'm excited. I started to read a little bit. I'm excited because when I'm finished reading it, it's going to go into my library so students can check it out from there.
01:18:05 --> 01:18:06 Awesome too.
01:18:06 --> 01:18:35 So you'll have. I'll have to. Once I have it cataloged, I'll definitely shoot some pictures your way so you could see a catalog book on the shelf into my library that you know, I just think that's cool. So. No, I'm excited to, to read it, to finish reading it. Like I said, I got a little bit started here in the first chapter because I got it not long ago and no, I'm excited to read it and I'm excited to see how I show up in. In some form in a future books. That's awesome.
01:18:35 --> 01:19:19 Well, and the, the book is written through something called Kindle Direct Publishing. So it, yeah, it's available on Amazon either in paperback, hardback, Kindle version. And then I'm actually, I'm doing the audiobook now, which is another interesting thing because as you could tell, I don't really have a, a voice octave that fits with like a high school junior girl, you know, but so that's, that's pretty interesting. But one thing that's really fun about publishing with KDP is if I ever find something that is the. A typo or anything, I go in and I can create a new version of the book.
01:19:19 --> 01:19:20 Oh, that's really cool.
01:19:20 --> 01:19:46 Person that buys it, they would actually have that version. So what I tell people is if you read it and if everybody bought a copy, read it and let me know at least one edit in there, everybody would probably have their very own copy. Their very you own unique copy of the book because there, there are, there are a lot of typos unfortunately that I, I didn't really catch before it, it went out for the first time.
01:19:46 --> 01:20:11 But hey, keep it at, keep editing it. That's kind of cool that you can do that. So. No, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, yeah, thanks for, for, you know, filling us in on it. I'm. I know I'm excited to read it. Other, other people go ahead and check it out. Check out shared perspectives.org and, and being a fan of Disney, the podcast. Anything else they should check out of yours there if people.
01:20:12 --> 01:21:51 Yeah, there, there is being a fan of Disney. The book is also. You could also get that on, on Amazon if you just search my name, Cody Havert. But if you, if you like the stories of. From the Perspectives files that I will be adding stories about individual characters on sharedperspectives.org There actually is one of the more recent, recent episodes of Being a Fan of Disney the podcast. I, I read the chapter or I'm sorry, I read the short story about Elliot who's one of the main characters in the book. And I am, I have three or four more that I'm in various stages of writing and producing those stories as well and so if people read it and they're interested in learning, Learning more about these characters, there will be more short stories and additional stories with them as well. And another thing that's really cool is in future books, when. When Eric is a character in those future books, if people. If people are interested in, you know, hey, what. What would he be doing? Or what would he do with. With shared perspectives and what type of agent would he be? You know, people can always reach out and they can always come of. Share their. Their ideas and maybe it will, you know, influence where the stories go and things like that. That's been something that's really fun about these is. It's a nice way to kind of delve into my creativity and also share kind of in this collective community of Disney fans which we. Which we all belong to.
01:21:51 --> 01:22:12 Yeah, no, that is really cool. All right, well, I want to thank you so much, Cody, for joining me in this live stream. Good old Synergy Loves Company live here. I got some Banana Ball documentaries to watch. I got some. Some awesome reading to do. And so, yeah, thanks for. For hanging out with me and talking all sorts of things.
01:22:12 --> 01:22:20 Yeah, thanks a lot, Eric, and thanks, everybody. This was a whole lot of fun. So I. I really, really appreciate being here. So thank you.
01:22:20 --> 01:22:39 Yeah. All right. And remember to. I, as. I'm like, trying to sign off and click all my buttons and I forget. I forget my line because I'm clicking different things here. That's how. That's how that's called doing this live. Remember to keep discovering the magic in everything.