The Savannah Bananas will play at Target Field for three games next summer as part of the 2026 Banana Ball World Tour, marking their first-ever stop in Minnesota.
The Bananas are the flagship team of the Banana Ball Championship League, a touring league founded in 2023 that aims to make the game of baseball as entertaining as possible through fast-paced rules and a focus on nonstop action.
The team is scheduled to play three games against the Loco Beach Coconuts on Aug. 7-9. The league stopped in St. Paul this past August, when the Party Animals played two games against the Texas Tailgaters at CHS Field.
Before founding the league, the Bananas were a part of the summer collegiate Coastal Plains League, entering play in the league in 2016 and winning several championships. The team began gaining notoriety in 2018 after testing its “Banana Ball” format during exhibition games, garnering many comparisons to basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters.
Today, the team has reached national acclaim, with some games being televised by sports media giants such as ESPN, TNT Sports and Bally Sports Live.
Since the league’s inception, the team says it has sold out all of its games. According to Front Office Sports, their 2023 World Tour saw a waiting list for tickets of over 1 million hopeful attendees. Since then, the team has continued to grow in popularity, gaining followers across platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
For the 2026 event, tickets are awarded through a lottery system, which is open now through Oct. 31.
A Meet Minneapolis spokesperson said the Bananas’ stop here was made possible in part by the Minneapolis Tourism Improvement District(MTID), a new entity that charges a fee on hotels to promote tourism in the city.
