Northwest Arkansas Naturals

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals are a Minor League Baseball (MiLB) team based in Springdale, Arkansas. The team is member of the Texas League, and serves as the Double-A affiliate to the Kansas City Royals. They relocated to Springdale from Wichita, Kansas, in 2008. They were previously known as the Wichita Wranglers. The team also had previous incarnations as the Amarillo Gold Sox and Beaumont Golden Gators.

The Naturals play at Arvest Ballpark. The facility is located at the intersection of 56th Street and Watkins, and was completed in early 2008.

Origin

The Wichita Wranglers had struggled with low attendance numbers and an aging Lawrence-Dumont Stadium throughout Bob Rich, Jr.'s 18-year ownership of the team. In 2006, he sought a move to Springdale, Arkansas, contingent on a citizen vote to approve financing for a new stadium.

The pro-baseball movement in Springdale had counted on the support of the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, influential pastor of local megachurch First Baptist Church of Springdale. In June 2006, Floyd abruptly pulled his support after he discovered that the team would serve alcohol at games, making professional baseball a contentious and evenly split issue in Northwest Arkansas. The July vote on a measure to extend a one-cent sales tax to raise $50 million for the stadium passed by only 15 votes.

Northwest Arkansas

Northwest Arkansas (NWA, officially designated by the United States Census Bureau as the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area) includes Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville, the third, fourth, eighth and tenth largest cities in Arkansas. These cities are located within Benton and Washington counties; NWA also includes Madison County in Arkansas and McDonald County, Missouri, per the Census Bureau definition.

As per the 2014 United States Census Bureau estimates, NWA is the 105th largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States (501,653 residents) and the 23rd fastest growing in the US. The MSA covers 3,213.01 sq mi (8,322 km²), located within the Boston Mountains and Springfield Plateau subsets of The Ozarks. The Arkansas counties are within The South, a culturally and historically diverse region with customs, musical styles, and cuisines which have distinguished it from the rest of the United States.

Northwest Arkansas doubled in population between 1990 and 2010. Growth has been driven by the three Fortune 500 companies based in NWA: Walmart Stores, Inc., Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., as well as over 1,300 suppliers and vendors drawn to the region by these large businesses and NWA's business climate. The region has also seen significant investment in amenities, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Walmart AMP, and the NWA Razorback Regional Greenway.

Arkansas

Arkansas (ⁱ/ˈɑːrkənsɔː/) is a state located in the Southern region of the United States. Its name is of Siouan derivation, denoting the Quapaw Indians. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta. Known as "the Natural State", Arkansas has many diverse regions that offer residents and tourists a variety of opportunities for outdoor recreation.

Arkansas is the 29th largest in square miles and the 33rd most populous of the 50 United States. The capital and most populous city is Little Rock, located in the central portion of the state, a hub for transportation, business, culture, and government. The northwestern corner of the state, including the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Area and Fort Smith metropolitan area, is also an important population, education, and economic center. The largest city in the eastern part of the state is Jonesboro. The largest city in the southeastern part of the state is Pine Bluff.

Springfield Cardinals

The Springfield Cardinals are a minor league baseball team based in Springfield, Missouri. The team, which plays in the Texas League, is the Double-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals major-league club, and is owned by the Cardinals. The club plays at Hammons Field.

The Springfield Cardinals began play in the 2005 season. Prior to the 2005 season, the St. Louis Cardinals Class AA affiliate was the Tennessee Smokies located near Sevierville, Tennessee.

Attendance at Hammons Field for Springfield Cardinals games has been impressive, as the club has averaged nearly 6,500 fans per game for all eight years of franchise history. They ranked second in average attendance for all of Double-A baseball for each of the first three seasons, trailing only the Frisco RoughRiders, who are located in a much bigger market, just outside Dallas, Texas. In 2008, Springfield was third in attendance, trailing Frisco and the Corpus Christi Hooks. The city of Springfield itself has also experienced a tourism bump because of the team, actively encouraging St. Louis-area fans to drive down Interstate 44 to Springfield and see local attractions or the Lake of the Ozarks as well as a "Baby Birds" game.

Minor league

Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases and smaller budgets.

The minor league concept is a manifestation of the franchise system used in North American sports, whereby the group of major league teams in each sport is fixed for long periods between expansions or other adjustments, which only take place with the consent of the major league owners. In England (and many other countries), the football leagues have many divisions below the top-flight as part of the football pyramid. In other parts of the world there is usually either a system of annual promotion and relegation, meaning that clubs have no fixed status in the hierarchy, or there is only one professional league per country in each sport, rendering the major/minor distinction irrelevant.