Downtown Baseball Stadium

[FlippantCitizen]

Anyways I’m very interested to understand how we are going to afford $2B for Royals, $2B for chiefs and not raise more taxes. Would love a regional initiative but just a hard sell.

They'll have to figure it out. I won't vote for it at least. Royals should line up their investors and Chiefs should retrench in an updated Arrowhead. I'm not voting to sell the farm to remain a major league city. Either we are or we aren't. Our tax payers shouldn't be paying an undue share to make it so.

[normalthings]

Stadium will not cost $2 billion. $2 billion includes the development they hope to surround a stadium with and public infrastructure(like parks).

[KCPowercat]

Excited we finally got this started. Even on here though we've already shot all kinds of holes in nothing but an open letter. Give it time!

[Rusty Irish]

Sadly the price for a metro the size of KC to keep teams is a lot of public money. Which is why I'm for projects like this and fiercely opposed to 1970's esque stadiums surrounded by a sea of parking. Either way, we pay and pay handsomely.

There's only a few cities who have the power to where they can refuse public money without the threat of a team leaving really at this point and there's enough private investment in the local community to offset this. The traditional North Eastern powerhouses - NYC, Boston, DC, Philly. LA, Chicago, maybe a couple of others like Dallas. Even Atlanta has lost a team in the last few years.

We on the other hand, I'd consider our peers to be places like Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore etc and sadly we don't have the wealth or status of the mega metros to turn around and go and tell teams and leagues to fund their stadiums themselves without the real threat of a team leaving.

[normalthings]

Smaller is fine. 28k is ridiculous. Attendance is not going down that much. If the Royals can't draw 30k on a fri or sat night, then they probably shouldn't be in KC anymore.

I guess I have some really bad news to tell you? Friday night attendance has been dramatically below 30K. Saturday's ranging from dramatically to well below.

Because the Royals draw like shit now. They can't even draw 30k to home opener. I would hope a downtown stadium would help fix that problem. The Royals are much worse than the league as a whole and the only teams that are really worse than KC as far as attendance are the teams with terrible stadiums. (Tampa and Oakland) or just terrible organizations (Miami).

I would hope KC can easily get back to having many weekends a year drawing 30-32k for Fri and Sat nights. That's not a lot to ask and still way lower than what it should be. And when they say stadiums are getting smaller, they are. They are now typically around 40k when they used to be 50k and up.

Building a 28k stadium just means you have given up drawing MLB sized crowds and maybe that's were KC is now. If they do build a stadium that small, the rest of the stadium better make up for it or it will feel like a major downgrade from Kauffman. Just my opinion.

Averages are pretty low and I only see it continuing to decrease in the future. Even 28K is a sell-out a handful of times per year size.

[TheUrbanRoo]

GRID is right. You're not really viable if you're not seating atleast 32k.

I don't think we need a stadium that small. We've just been in a ditch with Dayton Moore for years and we're out of it now.

[normalthings]

GRID is right. You're not really viable if you're not seating atleast 32k.

I don't think we need a stadium that small. We've just been in a ditch with Dayton Moore for years and we're out of it now.

Deleted

[TheUrbanRoo]

No, I just think everyone is super jaded because of how bad the Royals have been for 35 years. A normal team, even small market, can sell out alot seats. I know the industry is going to smaller stadiums and making money from gambling now, but not *that* small to where you're under 30-32k. At that point, someone else can just swoop in and do a better job. The team just needs to not to be worst franchise in the MLB and we'll be fine.

[WoodDraw]

Returning to the letter itself, it’s hard for me to comment at this stage because I care more about location and what surrounds it than the stadium.

You’re all fighting over a number, but my concern is the neighborhood.

I think it was a strategic mistake to come out with that $2 billion number and no plans. It’s the headline number in every article I’ve seen and people don’t know what they’re paying for.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Also, the stadium itself looks so bad. It's literally the Pendulum rendering. Surprised that hasn't been noted more.

They're trying too hard to make it look like Kauffman. The half circle spired roof on top, the slim outfield seats, etc.

They need to realize that it doesn't matter what the angry JoCo man in 2022-23 thinks. This is a 50 year project. Kids in 10 years from now won't even know what Kauffman looks like or even care. Just make the best stadium possible. Stop trying to cater to the crowd who's gonna hate this no matter what. If you cater to them, they will water down this stadium design *and* still hate it anyway. Just do it right, it's a 50 year project for downtown.

[FlippantCitizen]

Returning to the letter itself, it’s hard for me to comment at this stage because I care more about location and what surrounds it than the stadium.

You’re all fighting over a number, but my concern is the neighborhood.

I think it was a strategic mistake to come out with that $2 billion number and no plans. It’s the headline number in every article I’ve seen and people don’t know what they’re paying for.

Agree with all of that. I personally don't think there will be a plan with <30k capacity but at the end of the day your concerns are my primary concerns too.

[WoodDraw]

No, I just think everyone is super jaded because of how bad the Royals have been for 35 years. A normal team, even small market, can sell out alot seats. I know the industry is going to smaller stadiums and making money from gambling now, but not *that* small to where you're under 30-32k. At that point, someone else can just swoop in and do a better job. The team just needs to not to be worst franchise in the MLB and we'll be fine.

The year we won the World Series, a year after losing the World Series, we averaged around 33 thousand. Those numbers aren’t coming back.

A more intimate urban stadium is completely fine. It’s better than an empty stadium. Combine it with bars and standing room and rooftops nearby and you’re fine. What that number is I don’t know, but it’s time to rethink what a ballpark is if we’re doing this.

[GRID]

Returning to the letter itself, it’s hard for me to comment at this stage because I care more about location and what surrounds it than the stadium.

You’re all fighting over a number, but my concern is the neighborhood.

I think it was a strategic mistake to come out with that $2 billion number and no plans. It’s the headline number in every article I’ve seen and people don’t know what they’re paying for.

I think they are trying to sell how big the overall project is vs how much the stadium would cost. IDK. Honestly, I think 99% of the public is just stupid on topics like this that are very complicated. No matter what they say in a press release, people have their minds made up that parking will suck etc so everything else is just a blur to them.

Hopefully in the coming weeks and months, the Royals will select a site and really start putting together some real ideas. And we can see how much of the surrounding development is vaporware based on how they plan to fund and develop the area.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Way too many people out there think this is not happening till the 2030's and think the Royals are gonna hold out through the whole lease. It's pretty obvious not many have been paying attention.

[beautyfromashes]

With dynamic pricing, the goal is a sellout. Higher attendance doesn’t mean anything anymore. Better for the club to have a smaller stadium that is full and jack prices than a bigger at standard fare.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Now that this is announced, can this still get done by 2026?

Seems like if it's gonna be a 28k cookie cutter like this is could easily get done by then.

[shinatoo]

Smaller stadiums create induced demand. At nearly 40k there was almost no reason to pre-purchase a ticket or buy season tickets at the K because you know there was a 78 out of 81 chance there would be available tickets. 28k seats mean more urgency in securing your tickets pre-season and or early in the season. Then, no matter how the team performs you have locked in that revenue. If you get consistent winning performance you can raise ticket pricing and lock in even more revenue.

But if they are going to do this they need to fix their broadcast issues.

[phuqueue]

I'm not into building a stadium with max capacity significantly below what the team averaged the last time they were actually good, which wasn't all that long ago. If you expect the Royals to continue averaging only 15k forever, forget building a new stadium for them, the franchise should be contracted. But we know that if competent management ever puts a competitive team back on the field, attendance will surge, and it would be stupid to preemptively limit that with a tiny stadium conceived while the team was in a particularly bad stretch of seasons. The point that you can hike prices if the team gets good and demand for tickets rises (which teams do anyway, no tiny stadium required) is probably very appealing to ownership, but I don't see why public money should be spent on something specifically designed so that much of the public is priced out of actually accessing it.

[beautyfromashes]

Spending millions on oceans of concrete and steel to lift a seat up to the top of the upper deck and then selling that seat for $7 is the epitome of stupid.

[KCPowercat]

The seating capacity debate is definitely silly and seems to be driven entirely by inferiority complexes.

Let the MLb team decide what works for their business plan jeez.