Toledo Named #2 Minor League Sports Market
Toledo ranked #2 behind the Quad Cities in SportsBusiness Journal's sixth ranking of the nation’s Top Minor League Markets.
The Mud Hens and Walleye drew more than 842,000 fans combined in their most recently completed seasons which is a record.
The total was helped immensely by the Walleye, who had 65,000 fans in attendance during their post season run in the playoffs. 65,000 fans to their attendance count.
On the baseball side, fans filled more than 76 percent of Fifth Third field's seats over the past five seasons, a rate higher than that of any other baseball team in the survey’s top 10.
The Mud Hens also appeared on Minor League Baseball’s annual list of top-selling merchandise during all five of the seasons measured for this year’s study, extending that streak to 18 consecutive seasons, the longest of any baseball club in the top 10.
This is the sixth time SportsBusiness Journal has produced this ranking of the nation’s Top Minor League Markets, the first coming in 2005 and then every other year since.
The Toledo market ranked #1 in the 2013 study.
This year’s project included a review of the following:
• 229 markets (212 ranked; 17 others were tracked but were not ranked, due to insufficient data)
• 48 leagues
• 386 teams
• 247.7 million in total attendance
• $2.1 billion in construction at 93 new or extensively renovated venues
The rest of the top 10 include:
| RANK | MARKET |
| 1 | Quad Cities (Moline-Rock Island, Ill./Davenport-Bettendorf, Iowa) |
| 2 | Toledo, Ohio |
| 3 | Fort Wayne, Ind. |
| 4 | Tulsa, Okla. |
| 5 | Charleston, S.C. |
| 6 | Des Moines, Iowa |
| 7 | Sioux Falls, S.D. |
| 8 | Inland Empire, Calif. |
| 9 | Hershey-Harrisburg, Pa. |
| 10 | Grand Rapids-Comstock Park, Mich. |
