Reading, Pennsylvania, secured the No. 5 position in the 2026 minor league market rankings published by Street Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, marking the fourth time the city has achieved a top-10 placement.
Teams in Reading reported a 67 percent occupancy rate for available seats, a 10 percentage point increase compared to the 2019 study.
Greenville, South Carolina, claimed the top spot as the nation's leading minor league market. Portland, Maine, ranked second after holding the No. 1 position in 2024. Charleston, South Carolina, earned third, and Richmond, Virginia, placed fourth. Toledo, Ohio, ranked sixth, Fort Wayne, Indiana, eighth, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, ninth.
Seven of the top 10 markets are home to an ECHL team. ECHL Commissioner Ryan Crelin said the rankings highlight the league's dedication to providing "family-affordable entertainment" and its teams' importance to their communities.
The 2026 report marks the 11th time SportsBusiness Journal has compiled its minor league market rankings. Each market's score is determined by tenure rank, attendance rank, and economic rank.
SportsBusiness Journal also conducts a broader "Best Sports Business Cities" assessment now in its fourth annual iteration, evaluating 2,384 markets that host at least one professional or Division I college athletic program, a permanent event, or a major stakeholder. The methodology counted sponsors with North American sports deals and awarded additional credit when regionally based brands held top-tier local deals such as venue naming rights or team uniform sponsorships. About one-third of the calculations focused on a city's sports stability, including the number and sustained tenure of teams, events, and Division I college athletic programs.
