Charleston, S.C.
TEAMS (FIRST SEASON): South Atlantic League Charleston RiverDogs (1980), ECHL South Carolina Stingrays (1993), USL Championship Charleston Battery (1993)
VENUES (YEAR OPENED): North Charleston Coliseum (1993), Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park (1997), MUSC Health Stadium (1999)
The consistency of Charleston’s three minor league teams is the major reason why the city is a mainstay on our minor league market rankings.
The Class A RiverDogs have long been known for clever promotions — Google “Helen McGuckin Night” — and a business operation that leverages that creativity into financial success. The RiverDogs were recently given the South Atlantic League’s 2019 Club Merit Award, for best all-around franchise, and set revenue and corporate sponsorship sales records in 2018 and 2019. The team also made MiLB’s top-25 merchandise sales list in 2018, the first time since 2011.
Stingrays President Rob Concannon said the team took inspiration from the RiverDogs’ view of minor league sports as entertainment first, and pro sports second. The hockey club just hired its first director of marketing.
“We’ve had to welcome and embrace that mentality as well,” Concannon said.
The Stingrays saw a 7% increase in average attendance over the last five years compared with the previous five, drawing an additional 145,000 fans during that period. That culminated in them winning the ECHL’s 2018-19 Team Award of Excellence, which recognizes the league’s best all-around club on, and off, the ice.
The Battery is the longest running pro soccer club in America and plays in the country’s first soccer-specific stadium, MUSC Health Stadium. But the stadium was sold in May, putting the team’s future up in the air. Evan Peters, the Battery’s director of communications, said the team has explored several downtown locations, but there is no news yet on plans for 2020. — Bret McCormick
Photo gallery: Charleston
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Battery fans shop outside MUSC Health Stadium.
Photo: jaylynn nash 
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