Banana Ball tour coming to four SC cities. Why not Columbia or USC?
The Savannah Bananas, a wildly popular traveling baseball event that’s captured the hearts of a growing fanbase, are about to embark on their largest tour yet in 2026.
The six “Banana Ball” teams will play games in 75 different stadiums across 45 different states, including four games in Greenville, Charleston, Conway and Spartanburg. But the state’s capital city of Columbia wasn’t on the list of tour stops.
Columbia is home to Segra Park, a near-10,000 seat minor league baseball stadium in the BullStreet district, as well as the University of South Carolina’s 8,232-seat Founders Park. Williams-Brice Stadium (capacity 77,559) brings the potential of hosting the Bananas’ new venture into games played at football stadiums.
The Bananas played at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium back in April and will return to campus for an exhibition against the home-team Tigers at Doug Kingsmore Stadium on Oct. 23.
So why wasn’t Columbia or USC chosen to host one of the games in 2026?
“Preliminary discussions were held with the Savannah Bananas; however, these conversations did not progress to a formal offer,” USC athletics spokesman Charles Bloom told The State through a statement. “Williams-Brice Stadium was unavailable due to scheduled renovations between the 2025 and 2026 football seasons. While Founders Park was considered as an alternative venue, it was ultimately decided not to pursue a bid to host games there.”
Banana Ball’s secondary teams will exclusively play at baseball stadiums in South Carolina. This includes Springs Brooks Stadium at Coastal Carolina in Conway, Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston, Fluor Field in Greenville and Fifth Third Park in Spartanburg. The league will play a total of 10 games in South Carolina on the tour.
Coastal Carolina University’s baseball home (Springs Brooks Stadium) will host the Party Animals against the newly formed Loco Beach Coconuts. Landing the event included a bidding process that started in the spring.
Coastal will host the games March 28 and 29 along with the cities of Conway, Myrtle Beach and other local partners.
“We need to bring these kinds of events on campus,” said Matt Harman, Coastal Carolina’s chief revenue officer. “It’s not just a revenue thing. Our role is to bring people on campus and expose what Coastal is all about.”
The 2026 tour will also play games in nine NFL and college football stadiums. Some schools, like Florida State in Tallahassee, will host the league’s spinoff teams in its baseball stadiums before the Bananas play in front of a larger crowd at FSU’s Doak Campbell football stadium.
As for Segra Park, home of the Kansas City Royals affiliate Columbia Fireflies, team president Brad Shank said the team and stadium were not invited to bid on hosting one of the Bananas games.
According to Shank, the Bananas invite venues to bid and then pick who gets to host.
“We were not informed of the opportunity to bid and that, while our organization (which owns three teams) has been in contact with the Bananas organization, we’ve not yet been invited to bid on or host any of their games,” Shank said. “While we’d be happy to do so, we bring many other great events to Segra Park.”
The larger-capacity games with the Bananas — the ones that are often televised on ESPN — are being played regionally in 2026 at the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park as well as Neyland Stadium (Knoxville, Tennessee) and Kenan Stadium (Chapel Hill, North Carolina).
Offseason renovations to Williams-Brice Stadium are expected to take up the offseason months at least up until the 2027 football season. So perhaps the home of the Gamecocks will be in position to host the Bananas beyond that.
“We oughta have that at Williams-Brice, especially when they went to Clemson and sold it out,” Columbia mayor Daniel Rickenmann said. “And everybody who’s gone says that it’s an experience. So we’ve got to get them here. So yes, we’re going to lobby to get them.”
— The State’s Morgan Hughes and Dwayne McLemore contributed to this story.
This story was originally published October 10, 2025 at 2:08 PM.
