Banana Ball Championship League (BBCL)

What is the Banana Ball Championship League?

The Banana Ball Championship League is the professional league built around Banana Ball, the fast, two-hour, points-per-inning version of baseball the Savannah Bananas invented at Grayson Stadium. For years the Bananas and their rivals toured as a travelling show with no table to play for; from 2024 they played under a "World Tour" banner, and in October 2025 they staged a first championship tournament in Savannah. The BBCL, which the league describes as the first professional Banana Ball league, launched in 2026 with six teams, a real regular season and a real trophy at the end of it.

What makes it different from any other league you follow is that nobody has a home park in the traditional sense. All six clubs travel together in a single tour, playing in MLB, NFL, college and minor-league stadiums — 75 venues in 45 states in 2026, by the league's count, in front of a projected 3.2 million fans. Every game on that tour between two BBCL teams counts toward the standings. The rules are the same Banana Ball rules the Bananas have refined since 2020: every inning is worth one point, there is a two-hour clock, no bunting, batters can steal first, fans who catch a foul ball record an out, and ties are settled with a one-on-one Showdown. Our Banana Ball rules guide walks through all of it.

Banana Ball Reminder is an unofficial fan site. Official schedules, rosters and tickets are at bananaball.com; what you get here is the league explained in one place, plus live standings and a playoff picture that update as games go final.

How the 2026 season works

The BBCL calendar runs from late February to the second Saturday in October and has five distinct stages. Everything below comes from the league's October 2025 schedule release and its 2026 announcements; where the league has not published a detail, we say so.

1. Preseason (February–April)

The season opened on February 26–28 in Tallahassee, Florida, and the league scheduled 11 preseason games in all. Preseason results do not count in the standings, but they matter: the four best preseason teams qualify for the Banana Ball Open.

2. The Banana Ball Open (April 16–19, Grayson Stadium)

The Open is a four-team tournament played at the Bananas' home park in Savannah. Its prize is the only thing in Banana Ball that can be won before the regular season starts: an automatic berth in the October playoffs. In 2026 the Texas Tailgaters upset the Bananas in the final to take it, so Texas has been "clinched" in our playoff picture since April regardless of their record. The playoff format page has the full detail.

3. Regular season (late April – September 27)

Each team plays a 50-game regular season on the tour. Because clubs play an uneven mix of opponents and reach 50 games at different rates, the table is ordered by winning percentage, not wins. Games labelled as Open, playoff, championship or exhibition games are excluded. The last regular-season date on the official schedule is September 27, 2026, with a closing weekend that includes games at Globe Life Field in Arlington and Progressive Field in Cleveland. Every game is on our schedule; finals are on past games.

4. October playoffs

The top teams by winning percentage join the Open champion in a 4-team October playoff. When the league released the 2026 schedule in October 2025 it listed the playoff tournament for October 1–4 at Grayson Stadium in Savannah; the official schedule currently shows a multi-team event at Grayson on October 1 with the time still to be announced. As of late August the league has not published the bracket, the matchups, or whether every one of those dates still stands — when it does, this page and the playoff picture will carry it.

5. The Banana Bowl (October 10, Nationals Park)

The two teams left standing meet in the first Banana Bowl on Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 7 p.m. ET at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. The league tied the venue choice to America's 250th anniversary — it is the first time all six teams and casts are gathered in the nation's capital — and the night ends with a "Final Inning Show" the league is billing as the largest musical performance in Banana Ball history. Our Banana Bowl 2026 guide covers tickets, streaming and getting to the park.

Tiebreakers

With six teams and a 50-game schedule, ties in winning percentage are common — at the mid-August checkpoint the Firefighters and Party Animals were level at 23-26. The league breaks ties in this order:

1. Head-to-head record between the tied teams.
2. Total successful trick plays over the season. This is the one that surprises newcomers: a behind-the-back catch or a between-the-legs throw that goes in the book as a trick play can decide a seed.
3. Point differential — innings won minus innings lost across the season.
4. Head-to-head trick plays in games between the tied teams only.

Our standings apply the first three automatically from the box scores; the fourth is noted but not computed because the feed we read does not break trick plays down by matchup. The playoff picture page shows the head-to-head records between every pair of teams so you can see the first tiebreaker for yourself.

BBCL history

The BBCL is a first-year league, but the idea behind it is older. Banana Ball was first tried in 2018 in an exhibition against Lander University, the first official game was played at Grayson Stadium in June 2020, and the Party Animals were invented a month later so there was someone to play against. The Firefighters (announced October 2023) and the Texas Tailgaters (announced October 2024) grew the touring cast to four teams, and through 2024 the clubs toured without a standings race or a champion.

In 2025 the league announced its first championship: a four-team tournament at Grayson Stadium from October 2 to 11, seeded from the season's results — Bananas first, Party Animals second, Tailgaters third, Firefighters fourth — with semifinal series followed by a single final. The Firefighters shocked the Bananas in the opening semifinal, the Party Animals handled the Tailgaters, and the Party Animals won the final 4-0 behind seven innings from Garett Delano. That is the only champion in Banana Ball's history so far; the Banana Bowl will crown the first BBCL champion. The full timeline, including the Clowns' Negro Leagues heritage, is on the champions and history page.

Who runs the BBCL?

The league is owned and operated by Fans First Entertainment, the Savannah company founded by Jesse and Emily Cole, who bought the Bananas' Coastal Plain League franchise in 2016. Jesse Cole, the yellow-tuxedoed owner you see on the field, is the league's commissioner, and every team — including the two expansion clubs — is a Fans First property rather than an independently owned franchise. That single-entity model is why the league can move all six teams around the country as one tour, keep ticket prices fee-free (the Coles run their own ticketing and merchandising), and decide rule changes without a vote. The Indianapolis Clowns name was revived with the endorsement of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, whose president Bob Kendrick called the revival a historically relevant tribute.

How to watch BBCL games

In 2026 the league has its largest distribution deal yet. ESPN and Disney+ carry a 25-game exclusive package beginning February 28, with every one of those games streaming on the ESPN App and Disney+ and select games on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC — the first ABC broadcast was June 28 from Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. Most other games stream free on the Banana Ball YouTube channel or the individual team channels, and the Banana Bowl itself streams on Disney+ and Banana Ball's YouTube. Game-by-game streaming details are on where to watch, and the Banana Ball Reminder app sends you a push notification before each first pitch.

How to get BBCL tickets

Banana Ball does not sell tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. Each city's games go through a lottery run on the league's own Fans First Tickets platform: you register for a city, and winning entries are drawn and given a window to buy. The Banana Bowl used the same system on a dedicated site (bananabowl26.fansfirsttickets.com) with entries closing August 23, 2026 and drawings from August 24. We never sell tickets here — our tickets guide explains the lottery, the odds, and what to watch for on resale sites, and the official source is always bananaball.com/tickets.