Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole this week announced plans to create a Banana Ball youth league.
According to Youth Sports Business Report, Cole's goal is reach 1 million youth athletes, with a vision to create a Banana Ball Word Series.
“Youth sports has its challenges. It’s expensive, overly competitive and often inconvenient for families. It will take a lot of work to create something that is new and different. But we are ready for the challenge,” Cole said in a LinkedIn post.
The Bananas launched youth programming back in 2024 through a partnership with Athletx Sports Group, hosting an inaugural Youth Banana Ball tournament in Cleveland.
Cole did not give a timeline for the complete rollout of the program.
“It takes putting ourselves in the shoes of our fans and focusing on one step at a time. We started on this journey by hosting camps and tournaments and learned a lot. We have a long way to go on what can we be done all over the country,” Cole wrote.
The youth league announcement comes as the organization prepares to launch Banana Ball as a standalone professional league in 2026.
