Savannah Bananas announce 45-state tour, new teams for 2026 - ESPN

Jesse Cole vividly remembers the early days of owning the Savannah Bananas.

They sold only a handful of tickets in the inaugural season in 2016 as a member of the Coastal Plain League playing as a collegiate summer team. He and his wife sold their house, emptied their savings accounts and slept on an air bed to start the team. When they left traditional baseball in 2022 and started «Banana Ball,» Cole expressed that they had a «big vision to create something special.»

The doubters expressed an opposite view.

«We were told it would fail. People said they would never come to it because it's not real baseball,» Cole told ESPN. «We've been criticized every step of the way. But you know what I remember, what I focus on is the fans that love it.»

After playing in front of over 2 million of those fans and selling out 17 Major League Baseball stadiums in 2025, Banana Ball is set up for its biggest move yet.

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Cole announced Thursday on ESPN2 that the inaugural season of the Banana Ball Championship League is coming to 75 stadiums, 45 states and will be played in front of 3.2 million fans next year.

Banana Ball is headed to 14 MLB parks and 10 football stadiums, including two with a capacity of over 100,000 — Texas A&M's Kyle Field (102,000) and Tennessee's Neyland Stadium (101,000). They'll even play at Billings, Montana's Dehler Park, which will host the smallest crowd in Banana Ball history at 3,000.

The Saints' Superdome and Patriots' Gillette Stadium