Savannah Bananas Eye 2M Attendance, Tour To Score MLB, Football Stadiums
Friday, October 4, 2024 at 12:35PM By Barry Janoff
October 4, 2024: With a goal of doubling attendance to two million, the Savannah Bananas have a bunch of plans for there future, unveiling their 2025 schedule — including stops in Yankee Stadium and two NFL venues — plus a plan to launch a six-team traveling circuit in 2026.
The Bananas — a MiLB-team-turned-Harlem-Globetrotters entertainment platform — have scheduled games on weekends in 18 MLB ballparks, featuring their first trips to New York’s Yankee Stadium, Baltimore Orioles Camden Yards and the Atlanta Braves Truist Park.
They also will play in Nashville’s Nissan Stadium in Nashville, the 69,000-seat home of the Tennessee Titans; and 75,000-seat Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, home of the Carolina Panthers,
Also on the “Banana Ball” road trip: Clemson University’s 81,000-seat Memorial Stadium.
"We played in front of one million fans this past year," Bananas’ team owner Jesse Cole told ESPN. "We're playing in front of two million fans next year.
“Maybe that sounds boastful, but our waitlist is at three million right now."
He anticipates sellouts at each of the venues. (See the full schedule here.)
The Bananas and their affiliated teams, the Party Animals and Firefighters, will be joined by a new team, the Texas Tailgaters, for the 2025 tour.
In 2026, Cole said he plans to launch the Banana Ball Championship League, with two more teams to be named.
Each team in the Banana Ball Championship League will play a 60-game schedule beginning April 2026 and culminating with the Banana Bowl Championship in October.
The 2025 tour is scheduled to start Feb. 1 in Sloan Park in Mesa, AZ, and run thru Sept. 27 in the Houston Astros Minute Maid Park. (See ticket details here.)
The team will also host 30 games in their Savannah home Grayson Stadium, a 5,000-seat venue that opened in 1926.
MLB destinations also include loanDepot Park (Miami Marlins), Tropicana Field (Tampa Bay Rays), Busch Stadium (St. Louis Cardinals), Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City Royals), Angel Stadium (Los Angels Angels), Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati Reds), Nationals Park (Washington Nationals), Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox), Citizens Bank Oark (Philadelphia Phillies), Coors Field (Colorado Rockies), Guaranteed Rate Field (Chicago White Sox), PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates), Petco Park (San Diego Padres) and T-Mobile Park (Seattle Mariners).
The Savannah Bananas were founded in 2016 in the Coastal Plain League and won three championships through 2022.
The reimagined Savanah Bananas begin playing full-time “Banana Ball” following the 2022 season, adding such rules as no bunting, a two-hour time limit, fans catching foul balls for outs, batters stealing first base, and a one-on-one tiebreaker showdown at the end of the game if the game is tied.
They also have become famous for players performing in-game choreographed dances to such music as Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey, players wearing kilts, the Banana Nanas senior citizen dance team and owner Cole wearing a banana-colored tuxedo — “not just sometimes, but all the time.”
"It's just wild,” Cole told ESPN.
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