Our beautiful ballpark, Modern Woodmen Park, was — for the second straight time — voted “The Best Minor League Ballpark in America” by USA Today/10Best. A huge honor!
But Modern Woodmen Park could never have been voted “Best in America” without unwavering support from across the Quad Cities. And we’re not just grateful for (and humbled by) your support, we’re driven by it. Your passionate backing leaves us more determined than ever to give back to this wonderful community.
We work hard to do right by this great community. Our ticket prices are among the lowest in affiliated baseball. Our concessions prices are markedly lower than those at most minor league parks. We’ve invested millions of dollars in Modern Woodmen Park, and we’re the only ballpark in America with its own mini-amusement park (and we just added another new ride for the second straight year!).
We also give back: We fund the largest college scholarship fund in all of Minor League Baseball. We pay an entire year’s tuition for area students to attend St. Ambrose, Augustana, Black Hawk College, and Scott or Muscatine Community Colleges. Those tuitions total more than $80,000 annually. No team does more.
The River Bandits also help pay for free flu shots for every Quad Cities child (nothing mandatory, but if you want your child to get a flu shot from Genesis, we’ll fund it). Additionally, we sponsor Camp Genesis for children dealing with cancer in their families, and the Genesis Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). And we’re the largest sponsor of Family Connects, which sends a nurse home with every newborn baby to an
impoverished mother for a week.
All in, we give away between $500,000 and $600,000 a year in charitable donations across the Quad Cities. The proof is in the pudding: we’ve won the Ballpark Digest charity award four times — no other team has won it more than once!
Finally, we have a 10-year contract with the Kansas City Royals that’s already paying dividends — the Royals’ starting first baseman, second baseman, and third baseman are all former River Bandits. We love that Quad Cities kids today can get autographs from and pictures with the Royals’ stars of tomorrow — just as previous generations met MLB stars such as Carlos Correa and, before him, Hall of Famer Joe Mauer.
Our season’s already underway — and runs throughout the summer. We hope you’ll pick at least one night and bring your family and/or your company’s employees out for a game. We promise we will do all we can to ensure that you and your team have a great time at America’s best minor league ballpark, Modern Woodmen Park — where the fun never stops!
Dave Heller is president and CEO of Main Street Baseball, LLC, which owns three of the premier Advanced-A and Short-Season teams within Minor League Baseball including the Quad Cities River Bandits in Davenport; Billings (Montana) Mustangs, and the Wilmington (Delaware) Blue Rocks.
