SBJ/SBD's countdown to the No. 1 minor league market continues with runner-up Toledo, which ranked No. 1 in our survey two years ago. The Northwest Ohio market has seen a 14% increase in its amount of total personal income from '10-14, but its population has dropped 0.4% over that time and is down 10% from the early '70s. While fan support for the teams remains strong, the level of corporate support will soon be evident. Fifth Third Bank’s 15-year, $5M naming-rights agreement for the local Triple-A ballpark -- money that is applied to help pay off stadium debt -- expires at the end of the '16 season. Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club Inc., the group that operates both the Int'l League Mud Hens and ECHL Walleye, is a nonprofit entity, and the Board of Lucas County Commissioners is the beneficiary of 100% of the net proceeds of the clubs. The county also owns both Fifth Third Field and the Walleye’s Huntington Center and uses the revenue streams from the facilities exclusively for each venue’s capital repairs and maintenance and to pay off each building’s debt service.
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TEAM
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FIRST YEAR
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VENUE
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YEAR OPENED
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Triple-A Int'l League Mud Hens
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'65
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Fifth Third Field
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'02
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ECHL Walleye
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'09
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Huntington Center
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'09
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FISH MARKET: The two teams in the market drew more than 842,000 fans combined in their most-recently completed seasons, a record sum, despite the area’s population decline. The total was driven by the Walleye, whose postseason run to an ECHL championship added 65,000 fans to their attendance count. The six-year-old franchise drew 296,739 fans for its '14-15 season (including playoffs), the most ever for a hockey franchise in a market that has hosted pro hockey almost continuously since '47. That strength helped make up for the fact that the Mud Hens’ attendance last season (545,265) was the team’s lowest in a decade and 4% below its average season total since Fifth Third Field opened in '02. Still, fans filled more than 76% of the ballpark’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 MiLB’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.
