Downtown Baseball Stadium

[flyingember]

I heavily disagree with that. Alot more people would move downtown permanently if we got NBA down there. Alot of people in these threads seem to underestimate people's' want and support for more downtown stuff, just like the airport and streetcar people were "shocked" that 75% of people in this market wanted those things. At that logic, then anything that comes downtown won't ever move the needle if an NBA team can't. A hotel and more highrises and entertainment I think would be a given if we had a pro-team down there. People go there now without even having one. I know, anecdotally, atleast a couple friends who would move down there if they did get a team, so once again I think KC underestimates the amount of support it would bring in for people going down there with a team.

I really doubt you have any basis for the statement that the NBA would drive people to live downtown. Two people isn't a statistic.
People didn't move to Independence or Raytown to be near the Chiefs or Royals and that's been possible for decades. That area has never had demand for development and the Royals are 50 years old

Access to work, good schools, shopping would be the big three reasons people move somewhere.

7 years of posts on the topic of what people want downtown
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18442

75% of people don't want (to pay for) rail transit. The only citywide vote that passed for rail in the past 20 years was closer to 50% and it took all it's money from the bus so there was no new taxes on the ballot

You're failing hard on selection bias, thinking your small community represents the greater demand.

[AlkaliAxel]

I really doubt you have any basis for the statement that the NBA would drive people to live downtown. Two people isn't a statistic.
People didn't move to Independence or Raytown to be near the Chiefs or Royals and that's been possible for decades. That area has never had demand for development and the Royals are 50 years old

Access to work, good schools, shopping would be the big three reasons people move somewhere.

7 years of posts on the topic of what people want downtown
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18442

75% of people don't want (to pay for) rail transit. The only citywide vote that passed for rail in the past 20 years was closer to 50% and it took all it's money from the bus so there was no new taxes on the ballot

You're failing hard on selection bias, thinking your small community represents the greater demand.

Lmfao. No shit, nobody would move to the Truman Sports Complex, it's in the middle of nowhere. If you put an NBA team downtown along with everything else we already have there, alot of new or young people in the KC region would want to move down there. That's what I was saying before. My "small community" is every young sports fan out of college from KC. NBA will drive people down there. Most like it alot more than the Royals too fwiw

[WoodDraw]

Hmm, I don’t buy that at all. That’s just not how people make housing decisions.

Not to say we shouldn’t get an NBA team! But I’d say very little impact on housing.

[flyingember]

Lmfao. No shit, nobody would move to the Truman Sports Complex, it's in the middle of nowhere. If you put an NBA team downtown along with everything else we already have there, alot of new or young people in the KC region would want to move down there. That's what I was saying before. My "small community" is every young sports fan out of college from KC. NBA will drive people down there. Most like it alot more than the Royals too fwiw

Your small community is 100,000+ people.

Yes, that’s realistic too……

[AlkaliAxel]

I just don't think that NBA coming downtown to KC wouldn't move the needle at all. At the very least I think more traffic, more revenue woudl bring in more money for stores/restaurants

[beautyfromashes]

I just don't think that NBA coming downtown to KC wouldn't move the needle at all. At the very least I think more traffic, more revenue woudl bring in more money for stores/restaurants

It would kick off building and development like you wouldn't believe. This city is on the precipice. One even small push will put wheels in motion for business, entertainment and residential building. It would be a new stage in the DT renaissance. The WC would do the same but we are building to some real synergy and momentum here and the speed it starts to get to fairly quickly will be amazing.

[AlkaliAxel]

I just don't think that NBA coming downtown to KC wouldn't move the needle at all. At the very least I think more traffic, more revenue woudl bring in more money for stores/restaurants

It would kick off building and development like you wouldn't believe. This city is on the precipice. One even small push will put wheels in motion for business, entertainment and residential building. It would be a new stage in the DT renaissance. The WC would do the same but we are building to some real synergy and momentum here and the speed it starts to get to fairly quickly will be amazing.

I agree. I do think we get an NBA team before the World Cup though (2026)

[beautyfromashes]

I agree. I do think we get an NBA team before the World Cup though (2026)

In some way, I think they are kind of related. Announcement of a WC hosting will immediately shine the spotlight on KC. That spotlight could attract a move here of an existing franchise. That's probably the only way we get an NBA team.

[AlkaliAxel]

I agree. I do think we get an NBA team before the World Cup though (2026)

In some way, I think they are kind of related. Announcement of a WC hosting will immediately shine the spotlight on KC. That spotlight could attract a move here of an existing franchise. That's probably the only way we get an NBA team.

Check out my thread in the first page how I think we're getting NBA here. And yep, I think if we get announced for a World cup city in 2022 that helps the case even more.

[wahoowa]

it's probably fair to say that increased concentration of marquee "stuff" downtown would at a bare minimum have a positive indirect impact on downtown businesses and housing/retail consumer demand.

i also think there's a tendency to ignore that this is a two-way street. a lot of these things are closed feedback loops to some extent. for example, a lot of the restaurants that just gave up this past year are the ones that just had a crappy/defeatist attitude towards their opening hours long before the pandemic and never really bought in to downtown sustaining them the way it could have. if you're the morons running the mixx downtown that never held it open past 3pm or on weekends and never negotiated for signage fronting main/the streetcar line, then yeah you're gonna have a hard time surviving when business lunch isn't a thing for18 months. if there are 40 extra nights where you know there's going to be a tipoff at 7pm or whatever and that's what it takes to get a manager to decide to go for extended hours, and you actually staff it up and commit to it and wait out the growing pains for people to remember you're more of an option, that's another way you could see some positive effects even though it's really more of a recapture of currently underserved demand as opposed to a boost of substantial new demand.

so idk the causal mechanisms some of you guys talk about seem extremely overblown to me but i can see how you could end up with a similarly favorable outcome even if i think your analysis of how it happens is way optimistic at best

[WSPanic]

I love the NBA, but it would have zero effect on this market in the long run. In the end, it will be just another poorly attended, crappy NBA team with no history. I would enjoy the secondary ticket market and easy access, though - so bring it on.

[AlkaliAxel]

I love the NBA, but it would have zero effect on this market in the long run. In the end, it will be just another poorly attended, crappy NBA team with no history. I would enjoy the secondary ticket market and easy access, though - so bring it on.

This is most defeatist statement I've read in my time here on KCrag lol

Other than the Royals, KC metro does a great job of filling up Chiefs, KU basketball, Sporting KC. It took one of the worst franchises in the history of sports (Royals) to bring attendance down.

But likely the NBA here would fill up naturally anyway because it'd be more of an experience to go to the game with P&L and downtown surroundings accompanied with it. Which is ironically one of the reason I think the Royals should move downtown to boost their attendance. Because atleast if the Royals suck (which they always do) you can go to a game more for an experience or for fun than just going to watch the game like you have to now. The supposed suburbanite swath of fans aren't ever showing up to the games when they're not winning anyway at Kauffman.

[WoodDraw]

What’s the experience? You’re still just going to a game, it’s not a vacation.

I love urban sports, but come on. Let’s stop this fantasy thinking. You’re still just going to a game.

[beautyfromashes]

What’s the experience? You’re still just going to a game, it’s not a vacation.

I love urban sports, but come on. Let’s stop this fantasy thinking. You’re still just going to a game.

Urban sports bring in more money and generate more activity than suburban ones, period. Hotel rooms, restaurant bills, drinks, shopping, Uber rides, all of it. It's getting more return for the city than a game in isolation and using the activity as a mechanism to get more amenities and quality of life for the days when the game isn't even going on.

[AlkaliAxel]

What’s the experience? You’re still just going to a game, it’s not a vacation.

I love urban sports, but come on. Let’s stop this fantasy thinking. You’re still just going to a game.

Like for example I’d be more willing to go to a game downtown if afterwards we could walk straight to P&L…or if we could go to a restaurant downtown beforehand

It’s just alot better vibes downtown too

[normalthings]

Felt like just a few thousand people at the Royals earlier this weekend. I looked it up and found these stats for the 2021 seasons so far. I really think that Sporting KC is the better choice for downtown both because of its current and growing popularity and because of all the other events they host each year.



Royals average attendance just above 13,000 so far this season.

Kansas City 45 598,047 13,289

https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance


Sporting KC around 19,000

Sporting Kansas City Children’s Mercy Park Average 19,377

https://www.transfermarkt.us/major-leag ... on_id/2020

[AlkaliAxel]

I think someone said this earlier, but if we didn’t have a local ownership group and we got an NBA/NHL, I would think the Royals would be at serious risk of getting relocated.

[WoodDraw]

What’s the experience? You’re still just going to a game, it’s not a vacation.

I love urban sports, but come on. Let’s stop this fantasy thinking. You’re still just going to a game.

Like for example I’d be more willing to go to a game downtown if afterwards we could walk straight to P&L…or if we could go to a restaurant downtown beforehand

It’s just alot better vibes downtown too

You might see a bit of a shift in demographics for the royals. I'm not sure many of my friends would get off work and want to spend three hours stuck in a stadium watching a shitty team with expensive/crappy beer and food.

We've talked before about the need to change how baseball stadiums are built, multi-purpose, etc.

I'm fully on board with downtown soccer though. Urban soccer is great, and we'd get to host lots of international games.

[AlkaliAxel]

What’s the experience? You’re still just going to a game, it’s not a vacation.

I love urban sports, but come on. Let’s stop this fantasy thinking. You’re still just going to a game.

Like for example I’d be more willing to go to a game downtown if afterwards we could walk straight to P&L…or if we could go to a restaurant downtown beforehand

It’s just alot better vibes downtown too

You might see a bit of a shift in demographics for the royals. I'm not sure many of my friends would get off work and want to spend three hours stuck in a stadium watching a shitty team with expensive/crappy beer and food.

We've talked before about the need to change how baseball stadiums are built, multi-purpose, etc.

I'm fully on board with downtown soccer though. Urban soccer is great, and we'd get to host lots of international games.

I think you'd definitely see a big shift in demographics. That's why it doesn't really matter when you hear people say "Well the suburban fans won't like downtown..." because it's not gonna be a fully suburban based group anymore. What will happen is all the people who live on the streetcar line and transport to games for free will start attending alot more, and suburbanites less so. It should result in a younger base at the stadium. But, a game won't then be all about the game. It can be more about going downtown too. Right now if you go, you're only going for the game like he said^

[WoodDraw]

Like for example I’d be more willing to go to a game downtown if afterwards we could walk straight to P&L…or if we could go to a restaurant downtown beforehand

It’s just alot better vibes downtown too

You might see a bit of a shift in demographics for the royals. I'm not sure many of my friends would get off work and want to spend three hours stuck in a stadium watching a shitty team with expensive/crappy beer and food.

We've talked before about the need to change how baseball stadiums are built, multi-purpose, etc.

I'm fully on board with downtown soccer though. Urban soccer is great, and we'd get to host lots of international games.

I think you'd definitely see a big shift in demographics. That's why it doesn't really matter when you hear people say "Well the suburban fans won't like downtown..." because it's not gonna be a fully suburban based group anymore. What will happen is all the people who live on the streetcar line and transport to games for free will start attending alot more, and suburbanites less so. It should result in a younger base at the stadium. But, a game won't then be all about the game. It can be more about going downtown too. Right now if you go, you're only going for the game like he said^

I like your enthusiasm, but I don't see many people taking the street car after work and then walking to the East village. Maybe around the margins.

I'm still hoping to be won over by the design though