Jesse Cole remembers well the early days of owning Savannah Bananas.
As a member of the Coastal Plain League playing as a collegiate summer team, they sold only a handful of tickets in their inaugural season in 2016. He and his wife sold their house, emptied their savings accounts and slept on air beds to start the team. When he left traditional baseball in 2022 and started “Banana Ball”, Cole expressed that he had a “big vision of creating something special”.
Skeptics expressed the opposite view.
“We were told it would fail. People said they would never get into 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, the thing I focus on is the fans who love it.”
After playing in front of more than 2 million fans and selling out 17 Major League Baseball stadiums in 2025, the Banana Ball is ready for its biggest move yet.
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 has been carried into 14 MLB parks and 10 football stadiums, including two stadiums with capacities over 100,000 – Texas A&M’s Kyle Field (102,000) and Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium (101,000). They will also play at Dehler Park in Billings, Montana, which will host the smallest crowd of 3,000 in Banana Ball history.
The Saints’ Superdome and the Patriots’ Gillette Stadium will also be part of the tour, which will be the largest ever.
Cole, who is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of every team in the league (Bananas, Firefighters, Party Animals and Tailgaters), revealed that the new moves are about bringing the game to a wider audience.
“When you have that much demand and excitement, we want to be able to go to the biggest stadiums as well as the smallest,” Cole said. “We want to play everywhere. We want to take it to where anyone in this country can play a game within four to five or six hours max.”
The league also announced two new teams Thursday: the Loco Beach Coconuts and the Indianapolis Clowns (which keeps the name of the former Negro league team). According to Cole, each club will have a newly created position of “prime-time coach”, who only manages the big games but is involved in social media and interviews throughout the year.
Two-time World Series champion (2008, 2013) and Hawaii native Shane Victorino will lead the Coconuts. The team is beach themed and will play at coastal locations, while also bringing the beach to other parts of the country. Cole said it was “the most fun, unique, craziest brand we’ve ever created.”
Victorino has been a friend of the Bananas and has joined them several times over the years.
“You know, for me, it’s always been about the heart. That island pride, that aloha spirit — it’s in everything I do. So, to take that, mix it with the fun, fast-paced energy of the Banana Ball? It’s a dream,” Vitorino said in a news release. “Coaching a team like this is all about vibrancy. It’s about making people smile, bringing joy to the game and showing that you can play with passion and laughter.”
Clowney has a rich baseball history. They were the Negro Leagues version of the Harlem Globetrotters and is the club with which Hank Aaron signed his first professional contract. The team began in 1935 and disbanded in 1989.
He described the Clowns as the most important team he ever created and said it took “years” to bring it back together.
In 2022, Bananas played the Kansas City Monarchs and visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Museum president Bob Kendrick shared the clown’s story with Cole, saying that Bananas reminded Kendrick of the old club.
“He said, ‘All the entertainment, all the fun, all the jokes, all the stuff you guys were making, it was like watching the Indianapolis Jokers and they were true pioneers in this entertainment genre,'” Cole recalled. “They’re the first ones to do it.”
The two kept talking and Cole formed a relationship with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and asked Kendrick if he could bring it back.
It’s a partnership to preserve the team’s history and introduce people to a team that brought entertainment to sports – opening the door for Bananas and its other clubs to do the same decades later.
Kendrick said, “The rebirth of the Indianapolis Clowns is an exciting and historically relevant tribute to the team that was at the forefront of combining baseball and entertainment.” “Our partnership is a tremendous opportunity to not only entertain, but to educate fans about the rich history of the Negro Leagues, as well as pay tribute to the team that helped influence Banana Ball.”
Ryan Howard – the 2008 World Series champion and 2006 NL MVP – will be assigned the role of primetime coach for the Clowns.
He called it an honor to coach the team, citing Clowney legends such as Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell who paved the way for the team.
“Banana Ball is all about energy, entertainment, flipping the script – and you know what? That’s what the Negro Leagues have brought to the game since day one,” Howard said in a news release. “Flash. Innovation. Unconditional love for the community and the game. They were rock stars before the world called them ballplayers.”
Both teams will compete with other teams in the Banana Ball Championship League.
The league will begin in February with 11 preseason games followed by a Banana Ball Open tournament that will determine playoff berths. The teams will then play a 50-match regular season from the last weekend of April to September and the top three teams will advance to the playoffs. The Banana Bowl season finale will take place on October 10, 2026.
Cole described the creation of the Championship League as the next logical step and “a no-brainer”. He stressed that it would change things “in many ways”, making every sport competitive and entertaining.
Another change the following year is the tie rule where trickery affects the score. If the visiting team plays more smartly in the first eight innings, they will score an extra point in the ninth innings. This is all part of the goal of increasing competition.
Banana Ball is increasing day by day, there are weekly calls to bring it to foreign countries. But Cole told ESPN he has a responsibility to the United States first and foremost.
“There are still places around the country that haven’t seen Banana Ball where we want to bring it,” he said. “And yes, the International will happen in the future. It’s not happening in 2026.”
Ticket prices are also not changing. Cole revealed he expects at least 3 million to 4 million people to join the ticket lottery list in the first 48 hours following Thursday’s announcement. However, there are no plans to raise prices: “We’re not doing that,” Cole said matter-of-factly.
Cole’s dream is to bring banana ball around the world so that it becomes a real sport that children play. He “100%” watches youth tournaments and leagues of various teams throughout the country and around the world.
“But, every year we have to do a lot of work,” Cole said. “We focus on where we’re going in the future, but really we have to accomplish every single year, every single night, every single ballpark.”
