Kansas City #4 on most underrated cities list... (St. Louis, Craig: living, vacation)

[bzoller]

Originally Posted by Old Trafford

KC is great

Now let me clarify some serious misinformation

National TV contracts

MLS TV contract about 20,000,000.00 a year cable only (only championship game shown on network)
NHL TV contract about 120,000,000.00 a year, this number does not count the cable contractracts (mulitiple games shown on network)

Average attendance

MLS – 16,310 (KC ranked dead last 10,630)
]NHL – 17,265

If you remove LA (averages over 26,000 a game) MLS attendance falls below 16,000.

Ticket price

MLS about 27.00 a game
NHL about 48.00 a game

Note that the NHL season is about twice as long – revenues are considerably more than MLS

Quality of play

The NHL is the gold standard of world hockey its salaries are the highest in the world and the best players in Europe are playing for North American teams.

The MLS is probably about the same level (maybe even slightly below) the Mexican leagues, Superliga always seems about even. MLS is far below the major European leagues (Premiership, Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A) The best American players go to Europe to play, David Beckham publicity stunt aside.

St. Louis is arguably the birthplace of American soccer, to date it has been the bridesmaid in expansion due to good and bad reasons. It will be an expansion city soon, the fact that there is no MLS team there is the equivalent of Dallas having no NFL team or Boston (or for that matter St. Louis) having no MLB team.

The reason KC has an MLS team is because Lamar Hunt was the leagues largest investor when it formed in 95, it was a way he could get more revenue out of Arrowhead. When KC won the MLS championship in 2000 about 4,000 people turned out for the victory rally, about the same attendance as an average SLU soccer game.

The only reason the wizards attendace is the lowest is because it is one of the smallest stadiums in the mls. The stadium they play in now only seats around 11,000 so if you think about it % wise they are almost 100 % sold out every time and because of this they are building a larger stadium because so many people want too come. I should know, i live here.

[rxpwas]

Originally Posted by kcmo

I love how StLouis people always think they play second fiddle to Chicago. That always cracks me up. It's not 1910 anymore. StL is practically a twin to KC compared to Chicago. There is no comparison between StL and Chicago. Sports rivalries?, sure. But that's it. StL is not in some Chicago shadow.

Actually, to me, St. Louis looks very much, especially looking at skyline across the river, like Cincinnati with an Arch, although much prefer Covington/Newport side of river of Cincinnati over East St. Louis. Kansas City, to a much lesser extent also looks like some areas of Cincinnati (especially the limestone hills, view from said hills at town, etc). None of any mentioned seems at all like Chicago, at least to me, anyway.

[cp1969]

Chicago is flat as pancake and filthy. Kansas City is a geographic marvel compared to it.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by cp1969

Chicago is flat as pancake and filthy. Kansas City is a geographic marvel compared to it.

Chicago has Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan> Missouri River

[cp1969]

So do Racine, Waukegan, Sheboygan, Grand Haven, Benton Harbor and about a hundred other places, any of which is preferable to Chicago. The shoreline on the east side of Lake Michigan is so much nicer than the west side there is no comparison.

What Chicago needs is another good, cleansing fire.

[northbound74]

I like Chicago well enough for such a large city. I'll take a good mayoral election outcome to help get things fixed. Having lived a significant portion of my life in eastern Arkansas, I'm used to flat. Flat isn't all bad. It's a great place to grow rice. In a place that gets a lot of snow, flat is probably a welcome thing.
KC is nice and hilly, but the Great Lakes are no geographical lightweight. I wouldn't mind living in that general region.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by cp1969

Chicago is flat as pancake and filthy. Kansas City is a geographic marvel compared to it.

Chicago is a giant, boring KC once you get out of downtown, but downtown is clean, safe and very vibrant and busy. I don't mind the flat topography in Chicago because I always end up walking about 20 miles while there and hills take the fun out of that, but yea, it's very flat there. But the water front makes up for it. Nothing better than biking along LSD or in Grant Park.

[faintlyamused]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Chicago is a giant, boring KC once you get out of downtown, but downtown is clean, safe and very vibrant and busy. I don't mind the flat topography in Chicago because I always end up walking about 20 miles while there and hills take the fun out of that, but yea, it's very flat there. But the water front makes up for it. Nothing better than biking along LSD or in Grant Park.

I really hope you're only comparing the topography of Chicago to KC, because in no way is Chicago a 'giant, boring KC'! Especially if you're implying that somehow the downtown is the only vibrant part of the city. In reality it's the opposite.....

But I digress....

KC is definitely an underrated city, especially for its size. I always thought that KC had an under-appreciated food scene, a lot of great museums and I love the look of the Plaza and Westport.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Chicago is a giant, boring KC once you get out of downtown, but downtown is clean, safe and very vibrant and busy. I don't mind the flat topography in Chicago because I always end up walking about 20 miles while there and hills take the fun out of that, but yea, it's very flat there. But the water front makes up for it. Nothing better than biking along LSD or in Grant Park.

The Walgreens in the loop closes at 6 p.m. Aside from some ped traffic in the theater district, Chicago downtown is DEAD after work hours. Unless you count the Mag Mile/River North area in with that (which some people do) -- in which case I'll give you that it's vibrant, but it's no where a resident would want to be very often.

Chicago has some of the most vibrant, eclectic, unique neighborhoods in the country. Where did you go? Jefferson Park?

[kcmo]

I was being extremely vague in that post. I guess I should have been more detailed. I meant Chicago's suburbs, the greater Chicagoland, mostly the western and southwestern suburbs, is not all that different than KC's suburbs, just more of them.

I know the loop area is mostly office buildings and much of downtown goes to sleep, but the downtown is surrounded by vibrant areas and parts of downtown remain busy during non-business hours. I wasn't comparing the city of Chicago or even the inner suburbs to KC, especially the urban neighborhoods. There really is no comparison.

Chicago is one of my favorite towns...in the summer .