The Vibrant Arena at The MARK, formerly known as The MARK of the Quad Cities, the iWireless Center, and the TaxSlayer Center is a 12,000-seat multi-purpose

arena An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...

located in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island ...

. The facility opened in May 1993, under the name The MARK of the Quad Cities with the singer Neil Diamond as the opening act. The facility was renamed as the

TaxSlayer TaxSlayer LLC (formerly known as TaxSlayer.com) is a privately held tax preparation and financial technology company based in Augusta, Georgia. The company offers online tax preparation technology for American consumers and tax professionals, all ...

Center on October 1, 2017. The arena started using its current name on September 1, 2022. It is the home to the revived

Quad City Steamwheelers The Quad City Steamwheelers were a professional arena football team. They were a charter member of the AF2 and played their home games at iWireless Center in Moline, Illinois. The team was founded on September 1, 1999 when the Quad Cities was ...

of the

Indoor Football League The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a professional indoor American football league created in 2008 out of the merger between the Intense Football League and United Indoor Football. It has one of the largest number of currently active teams am ...

and the

Quad City Storm The Quad City Storm is a professional minor league hockey team to begin play in the 2018–19 season as a member of the Southern Professional Hockey League. The team is based in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa, with home games at the Vi ...

in the Southern Professional Hockey League.

Sporting events

The arena has hosted NCAA Division I college basketball games (including the

Mid-Continent Conference The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States from Illinois on the East of the Mississippi River to the Dakotas and Nebraska on the W ...

men's basketball tournament from 1996 to 1999) in addition to several

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

and NBA exhibition contests. The

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...

has hosted their Women's Basketball Tournament 2016, 2017, and 2018. The now-defunct

Quad City Thunder The Quad City Thunder was a Continental Basketball Association franchise that was based in the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa. They played in the CBA from the 1987–88 season until the CBA folded in 2001. The Thunder were successful on the c ...

basketball team played all their home games at the TaxSlayer Center from 1993 until the Continental Basketball Association folded eight years later. Hockey has also been played at the arena since 1995. The

Quad City Mallards The Quad City Mallards were a minor league professional ice hockey team based in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa that competed in the International Hockey League, Central Hockey League and ECHL. They were named after the Mallards team ...

of the

United Hockey League The United Hockey League (UHL), originally known as the Colonial Hockey League from 1991 to 1997 and last known as the International Hockey League from 2007 to 2010, was a low-level minor professional ice hockey league, with teams in the Unite ...

played the first 12 years. They were replaced by the

Quad City Flames The Quad City Flames were an American professional ice hockey team that played in the American Hockey League from 2007 to 2009. They were owned by QC Sports Ventures Inc., an ownership group based out of the Quad Cities. The Flames played at the ...

of the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

for two seasons before moving to Abbotsford, British Columbia. After the Flames left, the

were reincarnated in 2009 and played home games at the arena until 2018. In May 2018, two months after the Quad City Mallards ceased operations, TaxSlayer Center director Scott Mullen and former Mallards' owner Howard Cornfield announced a Southern Professional Hockey League team called the

would play the 2018–19 season. In 2009, Western Illinois University's club hockey team, the Fighting Leathernecks, began playing there for four games per season. From 2000 to 2009, the arena played host to

arena football Indoor American football, or arena football, is a variation of gridiron football played at ice hockey-sized indoor arenas. While varying in details from league to league, the rules of indoor football are designed to allow for play in a smaller ...

as the home of the

af2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football ru ...

, who won the first two Arena Cup championships in league history (the arena hosted both games at the time). The Steamwheelers came back in 2018 in

Champions Indoor Football Champions Indoor Football (CIF) is a professional indoor American football minor league created in 2014 out of the merger between the Champions Professional Indoor Football League (CPIFL) and Lone Star Football League (LSFL), plus one team fr ...

(CIF) before joining the

(IFL) for the 2019 season.

Configuration

The arena seats up to 12,000 for end-stage

concerts A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide variet ...

along with center-stage concerts. It takes only six hours to convert the center into a theater (called ''The Theater at the TaxSlayer Center''). The

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

is 3,000 for theater shows, including Broadway shows, concerts and family shows; and 6,000 for amphitheater concerts. The center has also hosted professional wrestling events, including the 1997 Great American Bash and 2015 King of the Ring pay-per-views, and numerous broadcasts of World Wrestling Entertainment programming, including ''

Raw Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

'', '' ECW'' and ''

SmackDown ''WWE SmackDown'', also known as ''Friday Night SmackDown'' or simply ''SmackDown'', is an American professional wrestling television program produced by WWE that as of currently airs live every Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Fox Deportes sim ...

''. The arena also hosted '' WWE The Shield's Final Chapter'' on April 21, 2019. The arena contains of arena floor space, allowing the arena to be used for trade shows and conventions; adjacent is of meeting room space and an lobby. The attendance record was set in 1996, when more than 12,000 people viewed Neil Diamond's concert.

Naming rights

In August 2005, iWireless (formerly Iowa Wireless, a

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...

affiliate), announced a 10-year agreement with The MARK (former name) and the Illinois Quad City Civic Center Authority to secure naming rights to the arena. The name change to the "iWireless Center" occurred July 19, 2007. The naming rights agreement with iWireless was intended to be extended for two more years in July 2017. However, a new sponsor,

, an online tax and finance firm, bought the rights in 2017. In September of that same year, TaxSlayer Chief Marketing Officer Chris Moloney announced at a press conference that the company had signed a long-term agreement to be the title sponsor of the venue, which would now be called the TaxSlayer Center beginning on October 1, 2017. On August 17, 2022, the arena announced a new naming rights deal with Vibrant Credit Union. The new name of the arena, Vibrant Arena at The MARK, will take effect on September 1, 2022.

References

External links

Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:TaxSlayer Center Arena football venues Basketball venues in Illinois Buildings and structures in Rock Island County, Illinois Buildings and structures in Moline, Illinois College basketball venues in the United States Continental Basketball Association venues Convention centers in Illinois Indoor arenas in Illinois Indoor ice hockey venues in Illinois Quad City Flames Quad City Thunder Sports venues in the Quad Cities Tourist attractions in the Quad Cities Tourist attractions in Rock Island County, Illinois 1993 establishments in Illinois

Sporting events

Configuration

Naming rights

See also

References

External links