Savannah Bananas to play in three football stadiums, 18 MLB parks in 2025

The Savannah Bananas have rewritten the rules of baseball and will now take their unique brand of “Banana Ball” across the country to 18 Major League Baseball stadiums and three football stadiums next year in 2025. The 39-game tour will run from March to September and feature the Party Animals, the Firefighters and a new affiliate team called the Texas Tailgaters, according to ESPN’s Alden Gonzales.

The team competed as a collegiate summer baseball team until they rebranded and launched Banana Ball in 2022. Circuslike, entertainment baseball where teams compete under new rules like two-hour games, fans catching foul balls counting as outs, and stepping out of the batter’s box resulting in a strike. The team travels across the country and dazzles crowds in a similar style as the Harlem Globetrotters ahead of their biggest ‘world tour’ yet.

“At first people were like, ‘Well you’re just the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball,'” Savannah owner and Banana Ball creator Jesse Cole said. “I do take that as a compliment because the Globetrotters fundamentally changed the game of basketball, and they’re going on 100 years.

“But we look at ourselves as, we’re building a sport. We’re building something for the future generations to have fun with and really create something truly special. That is where this dream gets much bigger.”

Next year the Bananas will play in Memorial Stadium (Clemson), Nissan Stadium (Tennessee Titans) and Bank of America Stadium (Carolina Panthers), along with an extensive list of Major League ballparks that include the home stadiums of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, and Miami Marlins.

“We played in front of 1 million fans this past year,” Cole said. “We’re playing in front of 2 million fans next year. Maybe that sounds boastful, but our waitlist is at 3 million right now.”

The Bananas played in six MLB stadiums this year and received massive turnouts, also getting on-field guest appearances from prominent former MLB players like Ryan Howard and Roger Clemens along the way. With their latest tour set up to draw larger audiences and feature even more prominent figures in the sport and beyond.

“Now as we go out to these major league stadiums, we’re getting reached out to by a lot more former stars — All-Stars, World Series champions, MVPs — that want to be a part of it,” Cole told ESPN. “It’s just wild.”