The Savannah Bananas are officially mainstream.
Along with taking their showmanship on a “Banana Ball World Tour” this summer, the exhibition baseball team will have 10 of its games broadcast on ESPN and Disney platforms, the company announced Monday. That slate will include games at Fenway Park, Camden Yards and the Clemson Tigers’ Memorial Stadium.
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The summer tour will kick off on April 26 at Memorial Stadium, the first of three games played in football stadiums — the Tennessee Titans’ Nissan Stadium and the Carolina Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium being the others.
The games will air on Friday and Saturday nights on ESPN and ESPN2 and will be simulcast live on Disney+ and ESPN+, according to a news release.
“The Savannah Bananas have mastered the art of blending baseball with entertainment, creating an experience that resonates with fans of all ages, regardless of their baseball knowledge,” Brent Colborne, ESPN Vice President of Programming & Content Strategy, said in the release. “Their unique approach embodies two of ESPN’s key goals: reaching new audiences and inspiring the next generation of youth athletes.”
ESPN and the Bananas previously partnered on a “Bananaland” docuseries, and the network has broadcast a handful of standalone games in the past, including a July 7, 2024 game in Buffalo which averaged 460,000 viewers.
The Bananas news comes less than two months after ESPN announced that it would conclude its coverage of MLB games after the 2025 season. The network, which has broadcast the league since 1990, opted out of a seven-year contract that averaged $550 million per year.
“Unfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport’s appeal or performance on their platform,” MLB said in a February statement. “… ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement.”
In the league’s counter withdrawal, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred called ESPN a “shrinking platform” in a memo to team owners.
Last week, The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported that MLB has held discussions about licensing its MLB.TV game package to networks and/or digital platforms. NBC, Google, YouTube and Fox are among those who have shown some level of interest in ESPN’s package, according to sources briefed on the talks.
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Should we compare the Bananas to the MLB?
The Bananas are one of the greatest sports start-up success stories of the 21st century. In less than a decade, the Bananas have turned into the ultimate example of how a maniacal focus on fan-friendliness can generate intense interest and loyalty. Sell-outs are the norm, and every challenge of larger venues — 80,000 will fill Clemson’s football stadium on April 26 — is easily hurdled. (Bookmark Sept. 13-14, when the Bananas go to Yankee Stadium.)
To be sure: It is an “apples and oranges” — or, more accurately, “apples and bananas” — to try to compare Major League Baseball with the Savannah Bananas. But at a moment when ESPN is divesting from MLB, it is at least notable that the network will enthusiastically deliver valuable airtime to Bananaball.
Even if ESPN isn’t giving the Savannah Bananas a dime to broadcast their games, it is great summertime content for ESPN. Bananas games are intentionally constructed to finish in two hours, which makes them ideal for TV. And there is enough visual stimulation and peripatetic action to keep fans engaged. — Dan Shanoff, sports business managing editor
(Photo: Richard Burkhart / Savannah Morning News / USA Today via Imagn Images)
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