For Quad Cities River Bandits For The Best View In The Minors: How Voting Works & How to Win

A radio station's single-question ballot, not a citywide readers poll

Most Iowa ballots on this site are citywide readers-choice surveys: a publication asks dozens of questions, businesses campaign across categories, and the vote runs for weeks. The Best View in the Minors vote is a different animal. KBEA-FM, the Quad Cities station branded B100, runs one question on its own site at b100quadcities.com, and the question is whether Modern Woodmen park, home of the Quad Cities River Bandits, holds the best view in Minor League Baseball.

That narrowness shapes everything about the ballot. There is no category roster to work through and no slate of local businesses competing for attention. The page is a campaign piece in the station's own voice: it argues that Modern Woodmen park easily has the best view, and it asks listeners to put the Quad Cities on the map. A supporter arrives, reads a short editorial case for the ballpark, and votes.

The host matters too. Because KBEA-FM carries this vote on b100quadcities.com, a domain the station runs itself, the page sits inside B100's wider site furniture, including the station's on-air shows and its other Quad Cities promotions. The vote is embedded in a radio brand's daily output, which is why the campaign reads like a morning-show cause rather than a formal award program.

The dated record: seven editions and an August close

The ballot has a longer history than its single-question format suggests. Confirmed editions run across 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026. That is seven cycles over nine calendar years, with gaps in 2020 and 2024. The pattern marks the River Bandits vote as a recurring August fixture for KBEA-FM rather than a one-season stunt, and the station has returned to the same Modern Woodmen park question each time.

The one dated fact printed on the current ballot page is the close: voting ends August 15th. That line is the page's own evidence for the window, and it is the anchor any voting plan should hang from. What the page does not carry is the opening date, and KBEA-FM has not published a nomination round or any platform round dates for this market; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The gaps between editions are worth reading honestly. A supporter in 2024 would have found no live ballot, and the same could be true of any future year. The station has not stated whether the 2026 cycle leads into a 2027 edition, so the recurrence is a pattern in the edition history, not a promise. Treat each August as likely and verify on b100quadcities.com before building any campaign around the window.

How a supporter votes today

The mechanic is as plain as public voting gets. To take part, a Quad Cities supporter visits the ballot page on b100quadcities.com, reads the station's case for Modern Woodmen park, and submits a vote for the River Bandits. The page presents the pitch and the form together, so the editorial and the action sit on one screen. There is no category list to scroll, no nomination stage to wait for, and no ballot navigation beyond the single question.

The fine print is another matter. KBEA-FM prints no per-supporter limit on the page, states no daily-return rule, and describes no account or eligibility requirement. The ballot page carries no rules block of the kind citywide readers surveys publish, so the live form is the sole authority on repeat voting and on whether anything is required to qualify. Whatever the page asks on the day you visit is the rule in force.

Timing is the other practical point. The page states that voting ends August 15th, which makes the first half of August the working window for any supporter who wants to vote, return if the form allows it, and recruit others before the close. Because the ballot sits on the station's own site, checking the page directly is more reliable than searching for a mirror, since no third-party platform hosts this vote.

How this ballot differs from its Iowa neighbours

Set the River Bandits vote beside the other Iowa programs on this site and the contrast is immediate. The Best of Des Moines (CITYVIEW), the Best of Des Moines (Business Record), the Best of Cedar Rapids (The Gazette) and the Best of the Corridor are all publication-run readers surveys with many categories, business nominees and long voting windows. The Cedar Rapids CommunityVotes and the AHBA Parade of Homes round out a slate of city and regional programs.

KBEA-FM's ballot answers none of those questions. It is a Quad Cities promotion, not a Des Moines or Cedar Rapids one, and it campaigns for a single ballpark rather than a roster of local businesses. A vote here is a statement about Modern Woodmen park's view, which means the supporter pool is baseball fans and station listeners rather than a general readership scoring dozens of categories.

For a supporter, the difference is strategic. Citywide surveys reward broad category campaigns; this ballot rewards concentrated reach on one question before August 15th. The competition is whatever rival ballparks the minor-league conversation produces, and the station's framing, putting the Quad Cities on the map, gives the vote a civic edge the business surveys do not carry.

Widening support for the River Bandits vote

A single-question ballot lives or dies on reach. The station's own framing gives supporters the angle: this is about putting the Quad Cities on the map, so the natural audience is River Bandits fans, Modern Woodmen park regulars and B100 listeners who already treat the ballpark as a regional landmark. Sharing the b100quadcities.com link through fan groups, season-ticket circles and ballpark socials is the core move, and it costs nothing but a message.

Because the close is August 15th, outreach has a hard deadline, and a supporter who starts early can ride several days of sharing rather than cramming into the final hours. The station has not published any rule on coordinated pushes, so the safe reading is to keep outreach organic: real fans, real messages, no automation claims. Our guide on getting more votes online covers outreach patterns that suit a small single-topic ballot like this one, where every vote is visible against a modest total and the organizer's enforcement stance is unknown.