Downtown Baseball Stadium

[earthling]

^Yeah it simply won't work if this goes to vote for many reasons. Nearly all in Eastern Jack probably would want Royals to stay in TSC, even less chance to vote if there's a direct tax burden. And if vote doesn't pass, MLB may take it wrong way while faster growing markets want a team. Would be very unwise to even consider a public vote.

[FlippantCitizen]

Outlanders in JaxCo and North KC will be terrified of the idea of walking to there car at 10:30 pm in 18th and Vine. They will be scared in the loop.

I moved from Lee's Summit to near St. Teresa's and there are parents that won't let their driving age children visit my daughter because we moved to the "getto". Literally their words.

Yeesh. I grew up in JoCo and my folks let me go into KC for fun on my own. I guess they were a little more free range in style though.

[daGOAT]

If the stadium is going to East Village, it would make the future I'm looking at building more feasible but technically it's still possible w/o a stadium. All it takes is connects to the neighborhood, connections to money, good credit, a few years, and a clear (but flexible) vision. The stigma of an apocalyptic inner city is quite literally dying off.

P.S. at my preschool graduation I took a pirate eyepatch and told my pops, among a group of small talking parents, "hey look dad, I'm Snake Pliskin" lol it's still one of my favorite films, the premise alone was genius.

[FlippantCitizen]

If the stadium is going to East Village, it would make the future I'm looking at building more feasible but technically it's still possible w/o a stadium. All it takes is connects to the neighborhood, connections to money, good credit, a few years, and a clear (but flexible) vision. The stigma of an apocalyptic inner city is quite literally dying off.

P.S. at my preschool graduation I took a pirate eyepatch and told my pops, among a group of small talking parents, "hey look dad, I'm Snake Pliskin" lol it's still one of my favorite films, the premise alone was genius.

Haha that was a staple movie my dad would always watch when it was on cable when I was a kid. I love it too.

[AlkaliAxel]

The more I keep stewing on it, I don’t think Sherman would be trying to build a suburban style stadium complex like Atlanta. I think what they meant was the success of the Battery. John Sherman is a big downtown advocate & booster. Nobody with that background would be stupid enough to build a suburban style stadium downtown. Populous is too good & smart at designing stadiums to fuck up that badly in their home city too.

[daGOAT]

If the stadium is going to East Village, it would make the future I'm looking at building more feasible but technically it's still possible w/o a stadium. All it takes is connects to the neighborhood, connections to money, good credit, a few years, and a clear (but flexible) vision. The stigma of an apocalyptic inner city is quite literally dying off.

P.S. at my preschool graduation I took a pirate eyepatch and told my pops, among a group of small talking parents, "hey look dad, I'm Snake Pliskin" lol it's still one of my favorite films, the premise alone was genius.

Haha that was a staple movie my dad would always watch when it was on cable when I was a kid. I love it too.

tis a classic lol

The more I keep stewing on it, I don’t think Sherman would be trying to build a suburban style stadium complex like Atlanta. I think what they meant was the success of the Battery. John Sherman is a big downtown advocate & booster. Nobody with that background would be stupid enough to build a suburban style stadium downtown. Populous is too good & smart at designing stadiums to fuck up that badly in their home city too.

Plus, an engaged community of urbanists and a solid Downtown Council.

[normalthings]

Speaks for the annual downtown KC org lunch next Friday. Theme is “ Activating Downtowns with Sports & Entertainment”


No Royals?


Shani Tate Ross, VP of Sales & Marketing, T-Mobile Center (Moderator)
Mark Donovan, Team President, KC Chiefs
Angie Long, Founder & Owner, KC Current
Kathy Nelson, President and CEO of Sports Commission and Visit KC
Jake Reid, President & CEO, Sporting KC
And more!

[shinatoo]

So three of the panelists didn't know anything about it?

[AlkaliAxel]

Anyone else think this is going to be an uphill battle for Sherman? Terrible attendance at the K and this team sucks. A tax increase was going to be a tough enough sell but with how this team is performing I think it's going to be even tougher.

No I disagree. I think the lackluster attendance right now is their best weapon to convince people “we need to move downtown to get attendance up. It’s not working at TSC”

If the team is good and people are showing up, then nobody’s gonna want a change.

It’s easier to pitch to people “look, this team sucks, people aren’t showing up- we need a hard restart. Let’s move downtown” than when they’re winning and attendance is high and people are happy with the product.

[aknowledgeableperson]

And what happens when the crowds are 9,000 night after night for whatever reason?

[kas1]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that people already know their reasons for not attending games and won't be receptive to other people trying to explain it to them.

[AlkaliAxel]

I’ve been wondering if the reason for suddenly cratering attendance is being done on purpose from the Royals to try to use as an excuse to move downtown to “increase attendance”. Because it’s really really low and it kinda doesn’t make sense. They’ve always been a bad team but had more fans than this.

[phuqueue]

I wouldn't really try to read anything particularly meaningful into six games, but the team's attendance currently ranks 26th in MLB, the same as in 2019 and 2013. Since 2010, they have ranked: 25 (2010), 27 (2011), 25 (2012), 26 (2013), 25 (2014), 10 (2015), 12 (2016), 17 (2017), 23 (2018), 26 (2019), 22 (2021). Compared to attendance throughout MLB and taken within the context of their historic attendance ranking, it doesn't really seem like there is any Royals-specific issue happening here. Good teams draw crowds and bad teams don't. Not sure it is time to start reaching for conspiracy theories that conveniently also reaffirm the thing we are hoping is going to happen.

[shinatoo]

Combo of getting out of the habit of going from the pandemic and the tickets/parking prices are only getting higher.

[im2kull]

If Atlanta is the model then I vote NO. What a bland and unintuitive stadium, also felt like every seat was miles away from the field. We have to do better than that. Not to mention that it's a suburban stadium, way further from downtown than the K.

You'll never find a seating bowl better than Kauffman stadiums. It was specifically designed to guarantee that every seat was the best seat in the house. If you build a new stadium, you are certainly going to lose things like that. Choose wisely.

[im2kull]

Terrible attendance is pretty easily attributed to a few key things:

Massive inflation
Massive fuel costs
Massive parking costs
Baseball is a dying sport
A losing team. Nobody cares to pay to watch a losing team.
Baseball just had a delayed season and lockout.. most fans really have a hard time supporting multi-millionaires that cry for more and more money.

Attendance is down league wide for these reasons. Thos isn't a KC specific thing.

[AlkaliAxel]

Terrible attendance is pretty easily attributed to a few key things:

Massive inflation
Massive fuel costs
Massive parking costs
Baseball is a dying sport
A losing team. Nobody cares to pay to watch a losing team.
Baseball just had a delayed season and lockout.. most fans really have a hard time supporting multi-millionaires that cry for more and more money.

Attendance is down league wide for these reasons. Thos isn't a KC specific thing.

Baseball isn’t dying. Bloomberg just put out a new poll this morning showing MLB still has more avid & casual fans than any league other than NFL
https://twitter.com/markjburns88/status ... LGtD6dV_gA

[aknowledgeableperson]

Any increase in attendance with a new stadium will likely be temporary. If memory is correct this has happened to other teams in new stadiums, especially when they are losing.

[AlkaliAxel]

Any increase in attendance with a new stadium will likely be temporary. If memory is correct this has happened to other teams in new stadiums, especially when they are losing.

People keep saying that but Target Field proved that’s not true. They’re killing the Metrodome in attendance in the same timeframe.

Also it’s not hard to see a permanent attendance increase when you have atleast 300k people in walking distance of a free streetcar compared to the empty ruins they play in now.

[FlippantCitizen]

Terrible attendance is pretty easily attributed to a few key things:

Massive inflation
Massive fuel costs
Massive parking costs
Baseball is a dying sport
A losing team. Nobody cares to pay to watch a losing team.
Baseball just had a delayed season and lockout.. most fans really have a hard time supporting multi-millionaires that cry for more and more money.

Attendance is down league wide for these reasons. Thos isn't a KC specific thing.

This seems obvious to me. Inflation outpacing wage growth. When gas, groceries, rent, home improvement, summer travel, etc. are all pinching people's budgets, choosing not to go to the ballpark is an easy choice. I think MLB attendance is going to struggle league wide and baseball being a dying sport will be the least of the reasons.