The Savannah Bananas are coming back to Jacksonville.
The team released its 2024 World Tour schedule on Thursday night and Jacksonville is once again on the Bananas’ list of cities to visit. Savannah will play March 1-3 at 121 Financial Ballpark.
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The team will hold a ticket lottery through Dec. 1. Fans can join that list to secure a position for the lottery. A drawing will be held two months before the games, the Bananas said, and only those on the lottery list will be entered into a drawing for tickets. Joining the lottery list does not ensure a ticket.
News4JAX profiled the Bananas in an in-depth story in July 2022. Owner Jesse Cole told News4JAX then that he’d talked with Jumbo Shrimp owner Ken Babby about bringing the Bananas to Jacksonville on a tour date and he did last March.
The team played at 121 Financial Ballpark on March 4 and added a second date the following day due to overwhelming demand. Both games sold out almost instantly. The Bananas, who play a wild and theatrics-filled brand of Banana Ball on their tour, will play their traditional opponent, the Party Animals, during their tour.
The Bananas’ national profile has exploded over the past two seasons. They were even featured in a five-part documentary on ESPN+. And they had a waitlist of 80,000 for their traditional games in the Coastal Plain League.
The Bananas played two variations of baseball until last year. The team played traditional baseball in the Coastal Plain League, but Cole announced that the Bananas would no longer play in that league in 2023 as it looked to barnstorm around the country on its tour. On its tour, the Bananas play something called Banana Ball, which includes zany antics and modified rules to make the game fast, wild and fun.
The Bananas will also play in Tampa Bay Feb. 8-10. They will play in Savannah 23 times next year, including Feb. 23-25, March 28-29, April 4-6 and May 30-31.