Banana Ball is going international. The growing league revealed its 2027 schedule Thursday night, announcing games in Mexico and Canada as part of the 2027 Banana Ball Championship League tour, which will include 79 stadiums across 74 cities.
League creator and owner Jesse Cole said fans have long asked for international play. "Fans have been talking about us going international for years, and we've always said 'not yet, not yet, not yet,'" Cole told ESPN. "But as the demand has grown, and we've continued to hear from multiple countries and multiple opportunities, we said the time is now." Four of the league's teams will travel to Mexico and Canada, with games set for Monterrey and Tijuana in Mexico and Winnipeg and Toronto in Canada.
The schedule mixes intimate venues with major stadiums. Banana Ball will visit the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, and Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Larger stops include 23 MLB stadiums and 10 football stadiums, among them LSU's Tiger Stadium and the Tennessee Titans' New Nissan Stadium, which will host the Banana Ball World Tour Championship Bowl on Sept. 25. Cole said the league's ticket wait list reached 5 million this past year, driving the push toward bigger venues.
The league also unveiled Banana Ball 360, which will debut at Notre Dame Stadium on June 26. Two fields will sit on opposite corners of a football stadium, and the teams will switch fields between innings so that every seat has a close view of the action. The Banana Ball Open returns in 2027 at ESPN Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, from April 15-18. Banana Ball is also partnering with Disney on a documentary about the league's growth over the past decade.
Source: ESPN General · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing