Banana Ball

Banana Ball, or the Banana Ball Championship League (BBCL) from 2026 onward,^[1][2] is a barnstorming exhibition baseball league based in Savannah, Georgia.^[3] The league has played most of their games at Grayson Stadium since its inaugural season. The league has four teams: the Savannah Bananas, the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and the Texas Tailgaters.^[4]

Banana Ball Championship League

Sport	Baseball
Founded	2023
Commissioner	Jesse Cole
No. of teams	4
Most recent champion(s)	Savannah Bananas
Broadcaster(s)	United States: ESPN ESPN2 TruTV CW Sports
Streaming partner(s)	United States: ESPN+ YouTube
Official website	bananaball.com

History

Experiments with the Banana Ball format began in 2018 when the Savannah Bananas played an exhibition game against Lander University. The first official Banana Ball game was played at Grayson Stadium in 2020 when the Savannah team split into two parts for the game. From 2020–2022 the Savannah team played both Banana Ball and their regular Coastal Plain League (CPL) schedule. The Savannah Bananas began playing Banana Ball full time and the league was formed in 2023.^[5][6]

Teams

Bananas, Party Animals, Firefighters, Visitors

Tailgaters

Locations of Banana Ball teams.

Savannah Bananas

The Bananas were a part of the Coastal Plain League (CPL) West division,^[7] where they won three Petitt Cup championships (2016, 2021, and 2022). However, after the growth of Banana Ball, the team moved entirely to exhibition games against their partner touring teams.

Party Animals

During the 2020 shortened Bananas CPL season, the organization debuted a second squad for Banana Ball games at home: the Party Animals, wearing black or pink uniforms. Previously, the Banana Ball games were played as intrasquad scrimmage games of the CPL Bananas pre-season. The creation of the new team gave the Bananas a true home or away opponent in its exhibition gamedays during most of the season. In 2024, the Party Animals were fleshed out as a more permanent team with its own slate of games outside of the Bananas tour.^[8]

Firefighters

Debuting on October 5, 2023, as part of the 2024 season launch night, the Firefighters wear firefighter themed uniforms, including firefighter helmets.^[9]

Visitors

Introduced in June 2024, the Visitors serve as opponents for the Party Animals or Bananas in games when the other team faces the Firefighters.^[8] The Visitors wear generic gray uniforms with blue numbering (with no names on the back of jerseys) and constitute the minor league training wing of the Bananas organization.

Texas Tailgaters

The Texas Tailgaters were announced on October 3, 2024, during the 2025 season launch night, as the fourth team in the league and fifth overall. Despite the name, the team is also currently based in Savannah, Georgia, but it will headline games in Texas in September 2025. The Tailgaters are the first semi-regional team to launch since the original Bananas. In addition to their Texas headlining tour, the Tailgaters will play games across the country against the other three league teams.^[1][10][11]

New teams

In October 2025, the BBCL is expected to announce two new Banana Ball teams for the 2026 season.^[12]

Banana Ball rules

The rules of Banana Ball have developed.^[13] As of 2023, the Banana Ball rules are:^[14]

1. Games are won by points, instead of runs: the team that scores the most runs in an inning gets one point, except in the final inning when every run counts as one point. The final inning may be earlier than the ninth inning, due to the time limit noted below. When the home team has scored enough runs to "win" any inning other than the final inning, the inning immediately ends.
2. There is a two-hour time limit; no new inning may start after 1 hour and 50 minutes have elapsed. Once an inning starts, it is played to completion.
3. Batters cannot step out of the batter's box. Doing so results in an automatic strike.
4. Batters cannot bunt. Doing so results in an automatic ejection.
5. Batters can attempt to steal first base at any point during their at bat, including on passed balls or wild pitches.
6. Walks are replaced by "ball-four sprints". After ball four, the batter is allowed to advance as far around the bases as he can while the ball is sequentially thrown to all of the fielders other than the pitcher, starting with the catcher. The ball remains dead, with the batter-runner not liable to be put out, until the four infielders and three outfielders have each touched the ball. This often results in the batter-runner advancing to second base on the sprint.
7. No mound visits are allowed.
8. Foul balls caught by fans on the fly are counted as outs.^[15]
9. Ties are broken by a "showdown tiebreaker", an abbreviated extra innings format. Each team's half-inning during the showdown ends with any out or with any run scored by the batter—if the batter puts the ball in play, he must attempt to score. A batter who draws a walk advances to second base, with the hitting team allowed to send a new batter to the plate. The same happens if the batter is hit by a pitch. At any point during the showdown, a home run hit over the outfield wall immediately ends the game in favor of the batting team. If the game is still tied after a showdown round, another showdown round is played, until there is a winner. Scenarios differ by showdown round: In showdown round 1, each team selects a pitcher and hitter to face off, with the defense fielding only their pitcher, catcher, and a single fielder. In showdown round 2, the fielder is eliminated. In showdown round 3 (and later), the fielder returns, but each half-inning starts with the bases loaded, and each run scored counts as a point.
10. Each team is allowed to challenge certain calls by the umpires: whether a ball was fair or foul, whether or not a runner was tagged out (at home plate or on the basepaths), and whether a ball was caught or not. A team retains its right to challenge until they lose a challenge, after which they may not challenge any calls for the remainder of the game. The fans can also challenge one play per game, as determined by a fan who is chosen to initiate the challenge. Challenged plays are reviewed by the broadcast team, who relay their ruling to the umpire.
11. "The Golden Batter Rule" – One time in a game, a team may send any hitter in the lineup to bat in any spot. The goal of this rule is so a team can have their best hitter hit when the game is on the line.

Other non-standard baseball activities are sometimes used for entertainment purposes. For example, an August 2023 game featured an at bat where the pitcher and batter played rock paper scissors before each pitch: each time the pitcher won, the batter had to bat from the opposite side of home plate as he normally would, and each time the batter won, the pitcher needed to announce what type of pitch he was about to throw. Other entertainment includes elaborate walk-ups starting from the stands, in-game dances, and run celebrations.

Media coverage

Featured media

The league has been featured by ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, CNN 10, Sports Illustrated,^[16] and 60 Minutes^[17] highlighting its sports entertainment and viral videos.

Broadcast

Banana Ball entered into a partnership deal for its inaugural broadcast on CW Sports on July 27, 2025.^[18] Games are also aired live on YouTube and have aired on ESPN in the summer of 2025.^[19]