City of Eugene · Banana Ball · University of Oregon
Banana Ball Comes to Eugene
Banana Ball's first stop in Eugene — and a week of free community events the City built around it, documented and promoted end to end.
The overview
When Banana Ball came to Eugene for the first time, the City rode the hype with free community events — a youth baseball clinic and a pool pop-up with the players — leading into two sold-out nights at Autzen Stadium. I promoted the events, coordinated media credentials, and photographed everything into a recap and thank-you to the community.
Strategy
Banana Ball coming to Eugene was a first for the city, and the kind of moment that generates its own momentum. The City's move was to meet that energy rather than watch it pass through — turning a single ticketed game at Autzen Stadium into a week that belonged to the whole community.
The plan was simple and human: create free, low-barrier ways for residents to actually meet the players and be part of the spectacle, then capture it all so the goodwill outlasted the final out. My job was to promote those events beforehand, document them as they happened, and close the loop with a recap that read as a thank-you to the people who showed up.
Audience
- Primary: Eugene families and residents — including plenty who'd never heard of Banana Ball — that the free events were built to pull in.
- Secondary: local little league players and coaches, and the wider sports community already following the City's channels.
Goals
- Ride the once-in-a-lifetime hype of Banana Ball's first stop in Eugene.
- Give residents free, low-barrier ways to meet the players up close — not just watch from the stands.
- Capture genuine, joyful community moments the City could hold onto and share.
- Close the loop with a recap that thanked the community and carried the moment to new audiences.
Touchpoints
Two free community events led into the game, each designed for a different audience.
A youth baseball clinic put the players on the field with local little league teams — over 50 kids getting coaching, autographs, and a story they'll tell for years. A pop-up at Echo Hollow Pool brought the spectacle somewhere unexpected: players off the diving boards, signing gear, and hanging out with the residents who came to swim alongside them. Then the games themselves — two sold-out nights at the University of Oregon's Autzen Stadium, the Savannah Bananas and the Party Animals bringing the full Banana Ball show.
Across all of it, the photography leaned into the same thing: smiling, engaged community members shoulder to shoulder with the players. Not the spectacle alone, but the people inside it.
Output
Yield
The events drew real crowds — over 50 kids at the clinic, a packed pool pop-up, and two sold-out nights that filled Autzen — and the promotion earned strong organic reach: 27K+ views and 500+ engagements across two posts, most of it from non-followers rather than the City's existing audience. The pre-game ticket giveaway alone drove 70-plus profile visits. More than the numbers, the recap gave the City a warm, human archive of a landmark moment: proof that when something big comes to Eugene, the City can turn it into something the whole community gets to share.
What I'd do next
- Publish the recap within a day of the final out, while the hype is still peaking.
- Set a simple photo plan with the teams up front to guarantee player-with-fan moments at every event.
- Add a short highlight reel alongside the stills to extend reach even further on social.
The article
Thank you, Eugene.
For one weekend in June, Banana Ball made Eugene its home — and Eugene showed up like it had been waiting for the invitation.
It started before the first pitch. A field full of little leaguers trading grounders with players who treated every kid like the main event. An afternoon at Echo Hollow Pool, where the stars of the show cannonballed off the diving boards and signed goggles between laps. None of it was the game, and all of it was the point: the City wanted residents to meet this thing up close, for free, before a single ticket was torn.
Then two nights at Autzen — sold out, both of them — where a football stadium became the loudest ballpark in the state, 120,000 strong across the weekend.
Thank you to the Savannah Bananas and the Party Animals for bringing the whole circus. Thank you to the University of Oregon for opening Autzen's doors. And thank you to the thousands of Eugene residents who packed the stands, the pool deck, and the outfield grass. You are the reason a first became a weekend we won't forget.
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Rollout
Ahead of the events, I built and shared promotion to get residents through the door — including a giveaway of tickets the City had to hand out to the community. During the week, I coordinated media credentials for access to the games and events, then shot each one — the clinic, the pool, and both nights at Autzen.
Afterward, the photos were compiled into a recap and thank-you to the community, published as the City's official visual record of the week, with a short written piece to carry it.
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