The Savannah Bananas are rolling their traveling circus of a baseball show into downtown Phoenix, with two games against the Party Animals set for Chase Field on May 14 and 15, 2027. The catch for anyone hoping to be there: a ticket lottery tied to the dates closes at midnight on October 31, and getting on the list is no guarantee of actually landing a seat.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego announced the stop in a post on X, calling the Bananas “world-famous” and their act “one of the craziest shows in sports.” According to Axios, the Savannah Bananas will play the Party Animals at Chase Field on those same two dates, part of a 2027 tour that will send the Banana Ball league's six teams to 74 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Banana Ball itself bears only a loose resemblance to the sport it's named after. Axios describes it as a much wackier version of regular baseball, built around novelty rules, dancing umpires, stunts and comedy bits layered on top of the game. Per ESPN, games are capped at two hours, with no new inning starting after one hour and 50 minutes unless the score is tied, and teams earn points for winning individual innings rather than for total runs scored. The team's own site notes the show also folds in trick plays, dancing and singing between innings.
A Tour Built for Stadiums, Not Just Ballparks
The 2027 schedule is sprawling even by the Bananas' standards. The azfamily.com report states that the tour will visit 79 stadiums across those 74 cities, with Banana Ball games scheduled in 23 Major League Baseball stadiums and 10 football stadiums over the course of the year. Owner Jesse Cole is quoted in that same report as expecting the tour to draw an estimated 4.3 million fans in 2027.
That scale builds on a run of sellouts. The Bananas say every game has sold out over the past decade, a stretch spanning nearly 600 contests, according to the Sports Business Journal. The organization's 75-game World Tour in 2026 touched 45 states and included stops at major- and minor-league ballparks as well as NFL and Division I college football stadiums, with the team projecting 3.2 million fans would attend. The 2025 schedule had 72 games and drew about 2 million fans.
Phoenix Isn't New to Banana Ball — But a Full Show Is
Arizona has had a taste of the Banana Ball universe before, just not from the headline act itself. Two other teams in the league, the Firefighters and the Texas Tailgaters, faced off in Scottsdale earlier this year, Axios reports. But the Savannah Bananas themselves haven't played in the Valley since February 2025, making the Chase Field dates the team's first local appearance in more than two years.
Turnout elsewhere this season hints at what Phoenix could be in for. More than 140,000 fans attended the club's two-game set at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium over the Fourth of July weekend, per the Sports Business Journal's reporting. In Detroit, nearly 200,000 fans entered a lottery just for a shot at tickets to a sold-out weekend stop at Comerica Park, according to WXYZ — a show that featured the Party Animals facing the Firefighters, unlike the Phoenix dates, which pit the Savannah Bananas against the Party Animals.
How the Ticket Lottery Actually Works
Fans First Tickets, which says it is the only authorized public seller of Banana Ball tickets, is running the lottery for the Phoenix dates through its own site. Joining the Ticket Lottery List does not guarantee the opportunity to buy tickets; instead, a random drawing determines who gets access to purchase whatever tickets are available. That list closes at midnight on October 31, giving hopeful fans only days left to enter before the window shuts.
Pricing details specific to the Chase Field shows haven't been released, but the Sports Business Journal has reported that standard Savannah Bananas tickets have generally run between $35 and $60, with premium or VIB meet-and-greet packages typically priced between $100 and $125 at other tour stops. The spectacle's reach has already extended well beyond the diamond: the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, opened an exhibit dedicated to the Savannah Bananas in 2023, a nod to how far the novelty act has traveled from its Georgia roots.
