The Savannah Bananas, an independent baseball team that has become a national sensation, have always been a big-thinking organization. Now they’re thinking bigger than ever.
Loosely described as baseball’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters, the Bananas unveiled an eight-month, 111-game “World Tour” for 2025 that includes playing in football stadiums for the first time. The team has slotted dates at two NFL facilities—the Titans’ Nissan Stadium and the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium—along with another at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium.
Those contests will be joined by two games each at 18 MLB ballparks, rising dramatically from the six games played this year at big league facilities. Overall, the heavy increase in the number of games at major league stadiums is a direct reflection of the intense fan demand to see Bananas. The team sold out every game in 2024, playing to more than one million fans—more than what MLB’s A’s drew this year—and it has a ticket waiting list of about three million, including one million that joined in a 24-hour period this week.
The Bananas on Thursday night livestreamed the “draft” of its 2025 schedule, drawing more than 150,000 views.
“We’ve been very fortunate to hear from nearly every MLB team [about coming to play], particularly after what we did this year,” Bananas owner Jesse Cole tells Front Office Sports. “We know we can entertain at the 45,000-seat type of scale, and now we’re taking that next big step into football stadiums.”
Nissan Stadium has a listed capacity of 69,143, while Bank of America Stadium seats 74,687, and Memorial Stadium can surpass 86,000 when including standing room.
A Very Different Vibe
The Bananas have drawn broad acclaim for their unconventional style of play, known as “Banana Ball.” By design, the team plays a style of baseball that flouts many of the sport’s established on-field rules and traditions. “Banana Ball” includes a two-hour time limit on games, no mound visits or stepping out of the batter’s box, and no bunting. Batters have the option to steal first base, and there are defensive outs if foul balls are caught by fans.
Those modifications are complemented by a nonstop array of over-the-top in-game entertainment including choreographed dances, skits, sing-alongs, twerking umpires, trick plays, pyrotechnics, and players regularly mingling with fans—all of which become key content sources for the team’s heavily followed social media feeds. The traveling crew for most Bananas games surpasses 200 when including players, coaches, in-game entertainers, and other staff involved with staging the events.
In addition to the Bananas themselves, the team has created two opposing teams, the Party Animals and the Firefighters, and on Thursday unveiled a third, the Texas Tailgaters—each with their own unique brands and separate social-media followings. Unlike the Globetrotters, though, the game outcomes are very real, and serious competition remains a core element along with the fun.
At the football stadiums, nets will be installed along the outfield wall to keep balls in the park and account for the inability to have traditional baseball field dimensions.
There’s already further ambition for 2026, as the Bananas will expand their operation to a six-team Banana Ball Championship League, playing competitively for a season title within its unique presentation. That league structure is designed in part to further separate the Bananas from the Globetrotters and emphasize the nonstaged results of “Banana Ball.”
