The show must go on (and on, and on). The network behind Banana Ball TV
Written By:
NETGEAR Enterprise
What started as a small-town baseball team with a flair for showmanship has become one of the fastest-growing sports properties in the United States. The Savannah Bananas, often compared to the Harlem Globetrotters, sold out 17 major professional sports stadiums across the US in 2025, drew over two million fans, and earned primetime slots on ESPN and TNT Sports.
For 2026, the ambition grew still further: a full Banana Ball Championship League, six teams, 75 stadiums across 45 states, and nearly 200 games to broadcast. Behind every one of those broadcasts is a NETGEAR-powered network connecting the computers, intercom, production switchers, video routers, and replay systems that keep Banana Ball TV on air.
Built for broadcast
Banana Ball TV has long run its productions from REMI control rooms at Fans First Entertainment’s Savannah headquarters, adjacent to the historic Grayson Stadium. The new Championship League demanded something bigger: the ability to run up to three simultaneous live broadcasts on any given weekend, across dozens of different venues each season. A comprehensive upgrade of the production facilities followed, with NETGEAR M4350 switches at its core.
Matt Webster, Head of Technology Systems at Fans First Entertainment, led the network deployment. The scope of what the switches carry, from computers, intercom, video router control, production switchers to replay systems, reflects the full complexity of a live broadcast operation. VSM4320C switches handle 25G and 100G core traffic, MSM4332 units sit at the distribution layer, and 34 MSM4310 half-width switches provide access across the facility.
“Absolutely every single thing that supports our broadcast is connected to NETGEAR switches. The NETGEAR switches are designed for Broadcast without the price tag and they are really future-proofed.”Matt Webster, Head of Technology Systems, Fans First Entertainment
A touring production that visits college football stadiums, minor-league ballparks, and major-league venues in the same season can’t afford a network that needs specialist configuration at every stop. NETGEAR Engage gives the team centralized visibility across all switches, so when a new unit comes online, in the Savannah facility or in the field, any team member can adopt it and assign ports without deep networking expertise. Auto trunking extends that flexibility further. When a fiber run doesn’t reach the truck or resources shift mid-deployment, the crew can daisy-chain switches together without pre-planning trunk ports.
“NETGEAR’s auto trunking feature has been really powerful. I can just say: plug it in and go, we’ll think about it later. That has probably been the biggest feature we use consistently.”Matt Webster, Head of Technology Systems, Fans First Entertainment
No slipping on the network
With games airing on ABC, ESPN, and The CW, and free on YouTube, reaching millions of viewers, there is no tolerance for network-level failures. So far, there haven’t been any.
“Everything has worked exactly as intended. Everything turns on when it needs to, and connects. The product doesn’t really have any problem. Knock on wood, the switches are solid, the facilities are solid.”Matt Webster, Head of Technology Systems, Fans First Entertainment
NETGEAR products used
- 8 x M4350-16V4C Fully Managed Switch (VSM4320C)
- 9 x M4350-24M4X4V Fully Managed Switch (MSM4332)
- 34 x M4350-8M2V Fully Managed Switch (MSM4310)
- 4 x M4250-26G4XF-PoE+ Managed Switch (GSM4230PX)
- 2 x M4250-40G8XF-PoE+ Managed Switch (GSM4248PX)
- 20 x WiFi 7 Access Point (WBE718)
- 8 x APS600W Modular PSU
- 18 x APS2000W Modular PSU
- 34 x APS254W Power Adapter
- NETGEAR Engage
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The show is the point
The Savannah Bananas built everything around a single promise: the fans come first. Every production decision, every broadcast, every camera angle exists to deliver on that. The NETGEAR infrastructure running beneath it all was chosen on exactly that basis: reliable enough to be invisible, fast enough to keep up, and flexible enough to follow the show wherever it goes. When the game is this good, the network's job is to stay out of the way.