First, the Savannah Bananas came for TikTok, where the untraditional baseball troupe has twice as many followers as the Cubs, Dodgers and Yankees combined. Then they came for stadiums, selling out MLB, NFL and college football venues.
Now, the Bananas are coming for television.
Savannah’s Sunday afternoon game against the brand’s Firefighters franchise in Fenway Park will stream on Roku’s platform, following appearances on ESPN, TruTV and the CW. A Saturday tilt under the Green Monster’s shadow will air on ESPN, including a one-hour pre-game show spotlighting the Bananas experience.
“The Bananas … certainly caught our attention, as they’ve caught everybody’s attention,” Roku head of sports Joe Franzetta said. “From our perspective, it was a really nice opportunity to elevate what we’re doing within our sports experience to our massive userbase—July 4th weekend, Fenway Park—perfect combination.”
Banana Ball is broadcast by an in-house production team tasked with translating the manic energy of the live events into a compelling linear feed.
“Our show is something out of a circus and sporting event put together, and we are trying to build that with the broadcast as well,” Savannah Bananas executive producer Ivan Traczuk said.
The core presentation feels familiar to MLB fans, alternating between centerfield shots of the action and player close-ups. Traczuk said his team studied SNY’s Mets shows for inspiration.
But they’ve also pulled from YouTube. The broadcast utilizes some of the same cameras tasked with capturing social content—lighter lenses that can follow players’ hijinks around the field.
Players are frequently mic’d up; during last week’s game on ESPN2, outfielder Robert Anthony Cruz (Instagram followers: 730,000) kept his batting glove in his hand to make room for the audio recorder in his back pocket.
Announcers—”broadcast entertainers” in Bananaland—regularly chuckle to the action. They celebrate particularly short innings. Sideline reporters roam inside the foul lines.
“We’re still trying to find that perfect balance between—yes, it is a sports broadcast, but there is so much more to our show that we want to make sure that our fans at home can feel a part of,” Traczuk said.
Working with Roku will expose the nine-year-old brand to yet more potential fans, with ads ranging from the platform’s home screen to video spots across Roku’s inventory. The game will stream on the free ad-supported Roku Sports Channel. Those without Roku devices can watch via TheRokuChannel.com as well as apps on other mobile and smart TV platforms. “When the game is on, it’s going to be unmissable,” Franzetta said. Roku boasts more than 90 million streaming households.
Increasingly, media also serves the same role for the Bananas that it does for their traditional sports siblings: helping reach the millions of existing fans who are unable to attend games live. The Bananas drew roughly one million fans on their 2024 tour; their YouTube shows are viewed by another 250,000-plus per outing.
“We have a big vision for what the broadcast can be,” Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole said. “Because we know it’s a much bigger audience, even though we’re selling out football stadiums.”