Big XII Tournament, the P+L, downtown in general.

Highlander · Post by **Highlander** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:53 pm

OKC paper article about the Big XII tourney in KC.

http://newsok.com/article/3215649/1205409157

Midtownkid · Post by **Midtownkid** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:58 pm

They forgot to mention Ford Center's biggest draw back...It's in Oklahoma City. haha

Highlander · Post by **Highlander** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:04 pm

Midtownkid wrote: They forgot to mention Ford Center's biggest draw back...It's in Oklahoma City. haha

Yea, I didn't mention that the article was a bit defensive. To say the least.

Maitre D · Post by **Maitre D** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:34 pm

Highlander wrote: Yea, I didn't mention that the article was a bit defensive. To say the least.

And the posts here on the Rag, aren't?

PumpkinStalker · Post by **PumpkinStalker** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:38 pm

KCPowercat wrote: its all about their satellite feeds...lots of hotels don't have the spot..

I'm working at the Westin tonight and evidently they don't get the right channels here either. Lots of irritated people asking me where to go. So far I'm sending them to The Cashew and Paddy O'Quigley's but if anyone knows of anyplace else in the south Xroads that ought to have the games showing and have some room, I'd appreciate any suggestions.

FangKC · Post by **FangKC** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:45 pm

What about Bulldog, 12 Baltimore, Fred P. Ott's, Tanner's, The Quaff, Peanut, and Willie's? Do they all have TVs?

PumpkinStalker · Post by **PumpkinStalker** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:05 pm

FangKC wrote: What about Bulldog, 12 Baltimore, Fred P. Ott's, Tanner's, The Quaff, Peanut, and Willie's? Do they all have TVs?

Unfortunately these have all been older people looking for places in Walking Distance of Crown Center.

Bulldog is a good suggestion though.

grovester · Post by **grovester** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:07 pm

PumpkinStalker wrote: Unfortunately these have all been older people looking for places in Walking Distance of Crown Center. :( Bulldog is a good suggestion though.

does Smokin' Joe's have tv and are they done remodeling? I think I saw a grand opening sign last weekend

scooterj · Post by **scooterj** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:42 pm

Rumor has it that the hotels have been blacked out in order to force visitors out to bars.

Midtownkid · Post by **Midtownkid** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:44 pm

what do you mean by that? I'm sure the bars are fine w/o that. Am I missing some '&&&'

ignatius · Post by **ignatius** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:55 pm

Just got back. I don't follow college bball and am generally not into sports, but some friends are so I went with them down to P&L and checked it out. Watched the KU game in the Live district. The vibe was fantastic. KC felt like a real energetic city. As entertainment districts go, this is as good as we could have asked for. The integration into downtown and the arena is near perfect.

They drove and picked me up (couldn't talk the car dependent suburbadroids into taking MAX). We found free street parking on Walnut between 11th/12th, so was only a few blocks walk. A total non-issue even when the district and arena are packed. People were walking all over downtown, the energy was wonderful.

Some observations...
- There were more cabs driving down Walnut than I've ever seen outside NYC, like 10 cabs to every car at times.
- I saw JT of reVerse/La Bodega driving one of his pedicabs with a couple.
- Walked several areas around the district and didn't run into a single panhandler.
- There was a teeny tiny Quality Hill vehicle transporting people. What's that service about?
- Saw a double decker MegaBus coming in from STL/Chicago - was completely packed with Big 12 fans.
- Heading home near 10PM, Bulldog was not full, nor Michael Smiths or 1924, just moderately busy.
- We did go by the Martini district on the way down and places were pretty busy.
- We drove around the Plaza before they dropped me off. Streets were normal for this time of year (and it started raining). Restaurants looked maybe 2/3 to near full. Seemed there wasn't much tourist impact, some but not like usual when there's a big event.

The Big 12 fans were clearly enjoying themselves in the Live area and I'm sure it will be smokin until 3AM. P&L isn't fully open, yet it still felt like it was running on 12 cylinders and struck a grand slam. Very exciting time for KC. Let's hope it triggers some more offshoot development downtown. It just seems a no brainer that this should encourage more development.

Highlander · Post by **Highlander** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:26 am

Checked some of the Big XII papers this morning to find some impressions of KC as a host. Could only find a couple:

Dallas Morning News

Morning everybody from the bowels of the Sprint Center here in Kansas City. We're going to get the Texas Tech-Oklahoma State men's game up and running here at noon.

This has been kind of a weird week. Lots of big upsets on the women's side. But here on the men's side, all anybody's been talking about is the new arena. From what I can tell, this place is pretty spiffy. It reminds me of American Airlines Center, but since I'm a Big 12 South homer and all, I'll stick with the AAC and the Ol' No. 7 Club.

KC's done a good job hosting this thing. Fans seem jazzed. Dallas basketball fans shouldn't get too excited about this thing ever coming back to our fare berg anytime soon. That's actually OK with me. If Arlington can keep the Big 12 football championship, I'll go to Oklahoma City and Kansas City for the basketball tournament every year.

OKC Paper (new article)

http://newsok.com/article/3216516

scooterj · Post by **scooterj** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:58 am

Midtownkid wrote: what do you mean by that? I'm sure the bars are fine w/o that. Am I missing some '&&&'

Not missing any &&& at all. A hotel employee told me that normally they do get channel 38 but that the hotels have been blacked out. I didn't know that was possible for a local channel. Anyway it wasn't a high ranking employee like a manager or anything so that that for what it's worth.

Maitre D · Post by **Maitre D** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:28 am

Highlander wrote: Dallas basketball fans shouldn't get too excited about this thing ever coming back to our fare berg anytime soon. That's actually OK with me. If Arlington can keep the Big 12 football championship, I'll go to Oklahoma City and Kansas City for the basketball tournament every year.

As if KC would agree to give Dallas permanent football, while we have to split hoops.

Absurd.

scooterj · Post by **scooterj** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:33 am

When I worked the fan information booth at the Westin last night I got a LOT of positive feedback about Kansas City from the visitors. They praised the food, the hospitality, the arena, and especially the new downtown. They loved having so many options and so many things to do. All of those who commented said that Dallas was terrible but that both OKC and KC have been fun... with KC being the better spot.

In fact most of the people I talked to were from Oklahoma and most of them said they like having it in KC better than their home state and they can't wait to come back.

I did however field two groups of fairly common complaints:

(1) What I already mentioned above about not being able to get channel 38 in the hotels.

(2) This is in almost equal number to the above but summed up best by one older gentleman: "I had a great time, but your public transportation sucks!"

I had originally been sending people to the arena via the Big 12 shuttle (run by the KCATA) because even though it was 75 cents more than the MAX, it would get them directly there. Any everyone said the service to the arena was great. But the complaints came later when people returned from games. According to several people, the return shuttles were not showing up every 15 minutes like they were supposed to. They said they'd see shuttles come up, drop off people, then flip their signs to "out of service" and drive off. I'm told that at one point there were nearly 200 people waiting at the designated area for over half an hour and no shuttle had showed up. People then started taking cabs.

Our cab service was praised for its speed, efficiency, and inexpensiveness. Something I thought I'd never heard said about Kansas City! :) (As I walked back downtown from Crown Center later I'd swear cabs outnumbered private cars.)

After hearing these complaints I started giving people different advice: to take the Big 12 shuttle to the arena but to come back by way of the MAX. I handed MAX route maps to people and while most made it back ok, a few said they had a terrible time figuring out where they were supposed to go to get on a southbound MAX and ended up northbound, having to loop through the City Market stops first. A few people wanted to know why the MAX took such a convoluted route and didn't service the arena very well. I also noticed that the route map on the ATA web site still says "future site of sprint center" :)

So, yeah, clearly, we have transportation issues that need to be solved. Bring on that light rail!

shaffe · Post by **shaffe** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:44 am

hopefully this test run will give our city leaders time to improve things over the next two years and we can shore up the transit problems for 2010-11. by then they will just about have the permanent site thing hammered out and another experience or two like this one will put it over the top - so long as the transit improves.

they have GOT to move the 11th and grand max stop to 13th and grand.

scooterj · Post by **scooterj** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:09 pm

shaffe wrote: they have GOT to move the 11th and grand max stop to 13th and grand.

Agreed! And that would have the additional benefit of moving the 11th & Main stop to 13th & Main. That 11th & Main stop is a major, major bottleneck.

geeman68 · Post by **geeman68** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:15 pm

And just think that we have all of this great feedback with the Power and Light having only 14-15 open businesses. What will it be like when there's 40?!? This is a great time for Kansas City and we should be proud of the revitalization that is going on. I do hope our public transit works out the kinks, especially with us having the Big 12 again in 2010 and 2011, but we also play host to an NCAA Regional in 2009. Good times!

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:28 pm

Tell fans to complain to the Big 12 about this TV thing....Big 12 is small time in it's tv contracts....they know that hotels don't carry channels like the Spot.

KC12 · Post by **KC12** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:38 pm

I was out at the P&L district last night and it was freaking unbelievable, It was so packed so my buddy and I from Oklahoma went down to Johns Upper deck and there were people from texas, texas tech, and all over that ventured down that way, so the spillover looks good all over downtown. Also I saw at least 6 people being escorted out of the live district by police, did anybody else see all that? ITs nice to see the security down there!

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