How Banana Ball tickets actually work
Banana Ball sold about 2.2 million tickets in 2025 and carries a waiting list Forbes put at more than 3.5 million names, so the league long ago gave up on the first-come, first-served on-sale. Instead, every ticket for every game — Savannah Bananas, Party Animals, Firefighters, Texas Tailgaters, Indianapolis Clowns, and Loco Beach Coconuts alike — is distributed through a random drawing run on the league's own ticketing platform, Fans First Tickets. The help desk puts it plainly: all Banana Ball tickets are distributed through a random lottery so that as many fans as possible get an equal opportunity.
Here is the process from start to finish, as the league describes it:
- The schedule drops and the lottery list opens. Banana Ball announces the next season's cities during its City Selection Show (October 9, 2025 for the 2026 tour), and the lottery list opens on bananaball.com the same night.
- You submit one entry with one city of interest. The form asks for your name, email, cell number (it must receive SMS), and mailing address, and you pick a city. One entry per person; duplicates are discarded. You must be 16 or older with a government ID that matches your details, and for 2026 entries were accepted only from the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
- The list closes on a fixed deadline. For the 2026 season that was October 31, 2025. When you join during the window makes no difference — the drawing is random, not a queue — but popular cities can be pulled from the city-of-interest menu once demand gets out of hand, which is the one real reason to enter early.
- Fans First draws entries at random. Nothing about your order, your zip code, or your enthusiasm in the "tell us about your group" box changes your odds.
- Selected fans get an email with a purchase window. The message includes your purchase date and time and a link to the sale. Being selected is an opportunity to buy, not a reservation; seating locations and price levels can be gone by the time you log in, especially later in the drawing.
- You buy up to 5 tickets. The team currently limits purchases to five per person for lottery winners. If you need one more seat for an immediate family member, the help desk says to complete your order first and then call the front office at (912) 712-2482 to request it; it is reviewed case by case and not guaranteed.
- Your tickets live in your Fans First account. Tickets are digital, delivered through the platform, and the only approved way to pass them on is the Fans First Marketplace at face value.
- Missed out? Watch your inbox. If tickets remain after earlier purchase windows, additional offers go out to people who were not picked in the first round. The Marketplace also opens roughly 10–14 days before each game, once seating assignments are done.
If you are used to MLB's Ticketmaster scrums, the biggest mental shift is this: there is nothing you can refresh. Enter once, correctly, and then wait. For a deeper walkthrough of the drawing, including the Banana Bowl timeline table, see our Banana Ball ticket lottery explainer.
When the lottery opens
The 2026 season timeline (what actually happened)
- October 9, 2025 — The 2026 Banana Ball City Selection Show aired on ESPN2, ESPN+, Disney+, and the Banana Ball YouTube channel, revealing 179 regular-season games across roughly 75 stadiums and adding the Indianapolis Clowns and Loco Beach Coconuts. The 2026 lottery list opened that evening, around 8:30 p.m. ET per the official interest-list page.
- October 31, 2025 — The 2026 lottery list closed. After that date the only options were the Ticket Interest List and the "Notify Me" button on each city in the Marketplace.
- Winter–spring 2026 — Purchase emails went out to selected fans in waves; the help desk told entrants they would hear from Fans First Tickets "by no later than April 2026." Venue partners have described the invitations as arriving roughly two months before a given game.
- February–October 2026 — The season ran from Tallahassee in February to the playoffs in Savannah and the Banana Bowl in Washington, D.C. on October 10. Marketplace listings for each city open 10–14 days before that game.
What's known about 2027
As of late August 2026, the league has not announced a date for the 2027 City Selection Show, the 2027 cities, or the 2027 lottery window. The pattern from the last two seasons is a Selection Show in early-to-mid October followed by a lottery list that stays open for about three weeks, but treat that as a pattern, not a promise. The single useful thing you can do today is join the Ticket Interest List on bananaball.com/tickets, which is how the league emails you the moment the 2027 list goes live. We will update this page and our schedule page as soon as the 2027 show is confirmed.
The Banana Bowl 2026 lottery
The first-ever Banana Ball championship game got its own drawing. The Banana Bowl lottery opened August 18, 2026, closed at 11:55 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 23, 2026, and the league began emailing drawing updates and on-sale offers on Monday, August 24. Priority windows come first — the K Club sale on August 25 and the season-ticket-holder sale on August 28 — with general lottery entrants contacted after those. Full details are below and on our Banana Bowl 2026 page.
How much do Savannah Bananas tickets cost?
The honest answer is "it depends on the building," but the league publishes enough that you do not have to guess.
| Ticket | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price, bought directly from the team | $35 | thesavannahbananas.com ticket FAQ |
| Grayson Stadium / minor-league parks (food and soft drinks included) | $35 | Forbes, Sept. 2025 |
| MLB and NFL stadiums (typical) | $45–$50 average | Forbes, Sept. 2025 |
| Banana Bowl 2026, Nationals Park | $40–$60 | Banana Ball help desk |
| Banana Bowl club / premium seating | from $75 | Banana Ball help desk |
| Banana Ball Backstage (Banana Bowl) | from $125 | Banana Ball help desk |
| Children 3 and under on a lap | Free (ticket required for their own seat) | thesavannahbananas.com ticket FAQ |
Two things make those numbers unusual. First, Forbes reported Banana Ball's pricing as fixed with no added fees, and the league's own Marketplace is described as "no mark ups, no fees." Second, at the team's home park and at minor-league venues the $35 ticket covers food and soft drinks. That all-inclusive promise does not automatically carry over to MLB or NFL stadiums, where the host venue runs concessions and often sells its own premium packages (Busch Stadium, for instance, advertised all-inclusive seats for its August 2026 games starting at $99 and $125). Suites, clubs, and hospitality decks are generally sold by the host venue too, at whatever the venue charges.
If you are comparing those prices to what you see on a resale site, stop. StubHub, Vivid Seats, and Ticketmaster listings are either resales of lottery tickets or fakes; the team's FAQ names all three. More on that below.
Your odds and the tips that are legitimately useful
The league has never published selection rates, and with a waiting list Forbes put above 3.5 million the honest framing is that most entrants will not be picked for the exact game they want. What you can control:
- Choose your city strategically. The entry form takes one city of interest. Savannah's Grayson Stadium is described by the team as one of the hottest tickets on tour, and the team itself recommends exploring nearby cities instead. A Tuesday game in a big MLB park is a far better bet than a Saturday in Savannah.
- Know where every team is going. Six teams tour separately in 2026, so your region may see several stops across the season. Our full schedule and the team schedule pages list every date by city so you can pick the least-contested one.
- Enter before popular cities get pulled. The drawing is random, but the team warns that high-demand locations may become unavailable as a city of interest once demand spikes. That is the one real reward for entering on Selection Show night.
- Get the details exactly right. Duplicates are discarded, and the name and address must match your ID. One clean entry beats three sloppy ones, which get you zero.
- Keep the email address alive, and allow SMS. The purchase offer comes by email, with a specific date and time. The lottery form also warns that unsubscribing from Banana Ball emails means they cannot send you your entry updates.
- Join the Interest List after the deadline. It is not a lottery entry, but it is how the league announces extra purchase opportunities and next year's list.
- Use "Notify Me" in the Marketplace. Inside your Fans First account you can flag a city; you get an email when that city's Marketplace goes live, typically 10–14 days out.
- Be ready at your purchase time. Log into your Fans First account before your window, decide your seat budget in advance, and buy the moment it opens. Later windows see thinner inventory.
- Track the game even if you don't get in. The Banana Ball Reminder app sends a nudge before every game so you can catch the stream if you end up watching from home; your actual tickets, if you win, live in your Fans First Tickets account.
Banana Bowl 2026 tickets
The inaugural Banana Bowl is Saturday, October 10, 2026 at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., first pitch 7 p.m. ET. Two teams play for the trophy, but all six clubs and casts will be on site. Because demand was expected to swamp the park, the league ran a dedicated lottery rather than folding the game into the regular list.
- Entry window: August 18 to 11:55 p.m. ET on August 23, 2026, at bananabowl26.fansfirsttickets.com. One entry per person; U.S., Canada, and Mexico residents; age 16+.
- Drawing and offers: updates began August 24; K Club members buy August 25, season-ticket holders August 28, then general entrants in waves.
- Prices: $40–$60 for standard seats, club/premium from $75, Banana Ball Backstage from $125, subject to availability.
- Missed it? No new entries are accepted. Keep an eye on the Fans First Marketplace as the game approaches, and plan to watch on Disney+ or the Banana Ball YouTube channel.
The who, the format, and how to watch are on our Banana Bowl 2026 guide; the race to get there is on standings.