Dominic performed as Billy Bird while continuing his studies at Bellarmine. A class project spurred the idea for the venture that would later become BirdZerk!
“Our assignment was to create a business plan, and I had three ideas in mind. One was a ticket brokerage (Dominic supplemented his income in high school and college by purchasing and selling tickets to concerts and sporting events), and another was a home energy efficiency testing system. The third, of course, was a business idea based on Billy Bird.”
Heeding his professor’s advice, Dominic pursued the Billy Bird idea, which involved performing at minor league baseball games with Billy Bird and his sidekicks. Interestingly, Billy Bird’s uniform was designed by the mother of Ted Giannoulas, who portrayed The Chicken, one of the traveling sports entertainment shows (along with Captain Dynamite, Morganna the Kissing Bandit and Max Patkin, the Clown Prince of Baseball) that interested Dominic as a child. Billy Bird & Company was born, with Dominic serving as Billy Bird and Brennan filling the role of a sidekick. Brennan, who is 35, played soccer at Mercer University in Macon, Ga. He had performed as a radio station moose and the Kentucky State Fair Bear.
Billy Bird & Company was such a success that, after earning his degree, Dominic decided the group should attend the 1992 baseball winter meetings, which was fortunately held in Louisville. Using Dominic’s Billy Bird earnings and his funds raised by sales of Garth Brooks concert tickets, they created a video, designed marketing materials and built a booth for the annual trade show attended by big league and minor league baseball officials. Dominic invested $6,000 hoping that his presence would result in at least four bookings at $1,500 per appearance.
“That first year we did 48 shows,” Dominic said. “As long as I fulfilled my role as Billy Bird at Redbirds home games, they allowed me to use the Billy Bird character at Billy Bird & Company performances.”
In 1993, Billy Bird & Company appeared in Monclova, Mexico; Stockton, California; Clearwater, Florida and Medicine Hat, Canada and everywhere in between. To create a character of their own, Dominic and Brennan left Billy Bird behind and debuted BirdZerk! in 1995.
With its hijinks with players and coaches, humorous harassment of umpires and interaction with the crowd, BirdZerk! became a hit. Bookings increased in each of the first three years, keeping Dominic and Brennan busy traveling and performing year-round. Eventually, they added an inflatable character sidekick to BirdZerk!, which led to an idea that transformed the brothers’ operation into the country’s premiere sports entertainment company.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Haray Canary absolutely stringed me last year in Rome, Georgia. I now have a name to go with the police report. Sweet!