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We're Number 1 - in Minor League Sports

WVIK Staff

A national honor for the Quad Cities - in sports. Thanks to the success in recent years of the Quad Cities River Bandits and the Quad City Mallards, Sports Business Journal says this is now the number one minor league sports market in the country.

That's according to the industry publication's latest biennial ranking of more than 200 communities across the country with nearly 400 teams.
Joe Taylor is president and ceo of the Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau, and chairman of the Quad Cities Sports Commission. He says the two teams scored well in every facet of the Sports Business Journal study.
Taylor calls the Sports Business Journal the "gold standard" for reporting and credibility in the business of sports.

Credit WVIK Staff
River Bandits owner Dave Heller and Mallards ex.vp Bob Hoffman.

Dave Heller is the owner of the River Bandits.

SBJ4.MP3
Credit should go to the community for its support of the teams.

Since he took over the minor league baseball team in 2008, attendance has jumped nearly 75 per cent.

The convention and visitors bureau says more than half of all hotel room nights in the Quad Cities can be attributed to these two teams, and other local sports events.   

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.