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The relationship between Disney/ESPN and the Savannah Bananas is bearing more fruit.
ESPN announced Tuesday that 25 Bananas games will air across its platforms this season—15 more than the package from last season—including a game against the Party Animals on ABC on June 28 from Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore. Six of the games will air on ESPN and nine on ESPN2. All 25 of the games will air on Disney+ and the ESPN Unlimited streaming service.
Bananas owner Jesse Cole told Front Office Sports last year that he was inspired by Walt Disney, and affirmed in an interview this week that the partnership with Disney/ESPN surpassed his expectations.
“Banana Ball Day at Disneyland was bigger than any of us ever could have imagined,” Cole says. “For me, it was a dream come true, as someone who’s religiously studied Walt Disney and his attention to the guest experience, to see thousands of fans lined up in front of the castle was a sight that I never imagined. They told us it was one of the biggest parades they’ve ever had at Disneyland.”
Last year, the 10 games on ESPN platforms averaged 502,000 viewers, a 127% increase from the team’s seven appearances across ESPN and ESPN2 from 2022 to 2024. Their July 5 game at Fenway Park drew 837,000 viewers.
Cole declined to comment on how much Disney is paying for this rights package. But he said his team’s investment into their own production heft has been substantial as they produce the games in-house and license them to networks.
“We’ve invested $13 million in our broadcast team,” Cole says. “We do it all ourselves. We’ve brought in top [production] talent from the NFL, NBA, NHL, e-sports, and we’ve got high-tech equipment, so we’re definitely going all in on the broadcast as this continues to grow globally.”
In addition to Disney/ESPN, the Bananas had rights deals with The CW and TNT Sports last year. Cole said they will also have additional broadcast partners this season, which will be announced in the coming weeks.
While Cole noted that the live events are still the Bananas’ “bread and butter” with shows airing on multiple partners, he said that they’ve had to get more “intentional” about how they script the games. That includes making sure that fans aren’t missing out on big entertainment acts between innings during commercial breaks.
Each game, regardless of whether it has a TV/streaming rights partner, also airs on the Bananas’ YouTube channel. “We have turned away some huge national partnerships, and left millions of dollars on the table, to continue to keep the games for free on YouTube for our fans,” Cole says.
The “Bananaball” league has been expanding, and there are now six teams: the Bananas, Party Animals, Firefighters, Texas Tailgaters, Loco Beach Coconuts, and Indianapolis Clowns. The demand has reached a point where games that don’t even feature the Bananas can sell out MLB stadiums, with the Party Animals playing at the ballparks of the Brewers, Tigers, and Guardians.
“Over 160,000 fans signed up to get tickets in Detroit, and when you look at each fan you’re expecting four tickets,” Cole said. “That’s over 700,000 fans who want to see the game. Even our newest teams have sold out everywhere they’re going. At every Bananaball show, you’re going to get 10-15 things that we’ve never done before in front of a live crowd.”
With several million fans on wait lists to get tickets to live events, a secondary market has popped up that has left prospective ticket buyers susceptible to scams.
“It’s never going to be erased. There will always be scams. We see it every day on Facebook. There are countless scams of people who don’t have tickets but say they do,” Cole says. He is therefore seeking to disrupt the resellers with his own marketplace.
“When we first announced the cities we’re going to next summer, within 24 hours there’s ‘tickets’ for sale on the biggest marketplace. Nobody has tickets! None have been sold, but they’re listed. Those are speculative tickets. It will always happen, but we’re tremendously excited about the fans-first marketplace, where every ticket is available for face value with no fees. It’s fans taking care of fans.”
