The dancing umpires, flaming baseballs and backflipping players are expanding their stadium footprint.
The Savannah Bananas, the exhibition baseball team that entertains with more showmanship than high-stakes competition, will visit 18 MLB stadiums and three football stadiums in 2025 while on its “Banana Ball World Tour.” They’ll face the three other Banana Ball teams — the Party Animals, the Firefighters and the Texas Tailgaters.
The football stadiums on the schedule all host at least 70,000 people, and Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole said Friday the rising demand indicates they’ll likely see sellout crowds at each, a major boost for a team that once only sold a handful of tickets. Cole’s marketing strategy, which is aimed at infusing “fun” into a largely traditional sport via stunts and songs, has helped turn the team into a national phenomenon. And next year, Banana Ball is going even bigger.
“In our first 24 hours, over 1 million people have joined the lottery list for tickets,” said Cole, who’s often spotted at games hyping crowds in his trademark yellow suit and hat. “So it’s been crazy to see the demand and excitement for Banana Ball. We are hoping to put on the best shows and challenge ourselves with football stadiums and new major-league stadiums, but we believe it can be an electric atmosphere just like great football and college football games.”
Vibes are HIGH (school musical) after last night’s 2025 schedule announcement🤪 pic.twitter.com/ZFjVmUWRSZ
— Savannah Bananas (@TheSavBananas) October 4, 2024
The football stadium stops include Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, which has a capacity of roughly 70,000, and Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers, which has a capacity of around 75,000. Clemson’s Memorial Stadium hosts around 81,500, which would mark the largest crowd for a Bananas game. The other tour stops, unveiled Thursday, include legendary ballparks like Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and Camden Yards. (The Savannah Bananas played a sold-out game at Fenway in 2024, a dream come true for Cole, he said.)
The team’s home games will still be played at Grayson Stadium, which has a capacity of 5,000 and is located in Savannah, Ga.
Next year’s schedule — in full here — also features at least two nights at each major-league ballpark they play in, increasing the ticket availability compared to the 2024 schedule when the Bananas visited for just one night. That’s because the demand was there, according to Cole, who said the waitlist for tickets last season hit over 3 million.
“(It’s) definitely a big jump (in MLB venues) but we saw with every major-league stadium, we had over 100,000-plus people on the waitlist to get tickets that weren’t able to, and with the capacity of 40,000, we knew there was an opportunity to do more and take care of more fans,” Cole said.
He said the fervor stems from the team leaning into the “fans-first experience.” There is a real winner and loser in each Banana Ball game, and a set of rules. Those rules include a two-hour time limit and fan involvement. For example, if a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out, and fans can even challenge a ruling. Players also perform choreographed dances every game, and one player plays on stilts.
But as the Bananas get bigger, they’re also leaning more into the competitive element. The Bananas announced a six-team Banana Ball Championship League to begin in 2026.
The biggest announcement in Banana Ball history 🏆#bananaball #savannahbananas #partyanimals #firefighters #tailgaters @YellowTuxJesse pic.twitter.com/1OH7zWuojI
— Banana Ball (@BananaBall_) October 4, 2024
“We’ve heard two ways of thought over the last few years — they’re the (Harlem) Globetrotters of baseball or, man, I wish they had a league,” Cole said. “We don’t compare ourselves to the Globetrotters. We admire and respect what they did for the game … but it became a scripted show every single night, whereas our games, our shows, are competitive every single night. You never know who’s gonna win or lose.”
Cole highlighted the possibility of fans impacting a play during a championship under its future format.
“We’ve seen the excitement at the ends of games with the whole stadium standing on a, theoretically, exhibition game. We can’t imagine what it’ll be like when there are even bigger stakes on the line.”
(Photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)
