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Why you all be hatin' on the Royals for an eight-year postseason drought?
How many years passed between the Chiefs' second and third Super Bowls? Did you all dump on them as well?
Then again, it seems that long periods between postseasons are something of a KC tradition. The Royals spent 29 years out of the money between winning its first World Series in 1985 and getting into the playoffs again in 2014. But I'd like to suggest folks develop the resolve of Philadelphia Phillies fans, whose team has lost more games than any other major league sports team and didn't win its first Series until its 95th season, in 1980 — the year the Royals made their Series debut. (They made it to the Series two times before, in 1915 and 1950, losing both times.)
Last edited by MarketStEl; 09-03-2023 at 08:51 AM..
So do people think if a brand spankin' new stadium is built, it will increase interest in the team, create buzz and draw fans? Psst, the Royals are terrible and have been terrible for a long time. They haven't been drawing flies and the reason is not because of their stadium, it's because the team has been terrible. It's hard to believe the glory years of 2014-15 are so long ago. Nobody was yappin' about a new stadium at that time. Attendance was great and the Royals were drawing from a wide area outside KC. This is like when a marriage is on the rocks and the couple think the solution is buying a new house or car. A temporary buzz but it soon fades. Put a good team there and fans and interest will be there, regardless of where they're playing.
I don't think they're selling it as a way to draw more fans, at least not primarily.
Supposedly, they're concerned about the age of Kauffman, the condition of the concrete, and the expense involved in renovating and maintaining it.
Surely there's an element of keeping up with the Joneses involved. Everyone else is going downtown so they want to also.
Perhaps the league is nudging the conversation in that direction as well. It's probably what MLB wants them to do.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if it's one way the owner wants to leave his mark.
On some level I suppose it could help the Royals be more competitive.
All that being said, people in KC like the K as it is. The stadium isn't the reason for the attendance and I think everyone knows that. When they're winning, people show up. Even a little win streak in an otherwise bad season causes a decent amount of interest.
They're used to driving and tailgating. It's a car town.
But let's be honest, that's 90% of America so perhaps folks in Kansas City are just being more honest with themselves.
I imagine a large percentage of baseball fans regardless of what city they live in or near drive to their local team's park, watch the game, and then make a beeline back home to the suburbs.
Personally, I always liked going to see the Royals, getting out of the parking lot quick because you can, and then head to a Steak n' Shake closer to home for a late-night burger.
The idea of wandering around downtown alongside a bunch of crazy drunks doesn't appeal to me personally. I also doubt that I'd go down there early to eat in some crowded overpriced joint when KC is full of places with great food and no lines.
But that's just me.
I'm fine with a downtown stadium generally, because I know the tide isn't going to go my way on this.
Also, it'd be a great infill project in a place that really needs it.
Downtown is doing okay, but it's not like companies are falling over themselves to build towers down there. Looks like entertainment of some sort and condos are their best bet. This would accomplish that.
I love KC, but good god. Downtown KC always feels like a total ghost town. It can be 70 degree on a beautiful work day at the noon lunch hour and there are like six people for blocks in any direction, if that. And while the P&L district can get busy, the rest of downtown is still empty at night too. Game activity may be manufactured, but anything to make that city feel like an actual city would be nice.
Kauffman Stadium has been a great stadium, but it's time to move away from it. That stadium would need hundreds of millions worth of renovations, if not over half billion and that would only get it through another 15-20 years and it still wouldn't have the a lot of things modern stadiums have. And the area around the stadium has become an embarrassment. Run down or closed motels, run down sprawl that almost feels rural, there is not even sidewalks on Blue Ridge. You are forced to uber or pay stupid fees to park. KC is one of the most expensive ballparks to park at because you have no other alternatives. I park in DC and Baltimore all the time for way less than Royals games and often free.
But mostly the Royals NEED more revenue streams. What is wrong with the Royals trying to find ways to make some money? KC is a very small market for MLB, it has almost no major corporations left there to buy season tickets and the stadium's location does not draw the young 20s-30s crowd at all. I just saw a game in KC and it was nearly all families. They need to draw from a wider demographic, especially a demographic that will spend money. The Royals don't make much off people grilling in the parking lots. This is MLB, not a college football game.
That's why the Royals are not even entertaining staying there. It just doesn't make sense.
If the voters vote this down, the Royals days are numbered. No way they stay in KC and why would people there want them to? Small market, old stadium, bad teams, tiny crowds. It will get old being the new Tampa or Oakland and there are too many cities ready to build a stadium if they could only get a team. Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, SLC, Portland etc wil build a stadium for the Royals. Seriously, once Tampa and Oakland move/get new stadiums, KC will be the team everybody will talk about moving for the next ten years, till they actually do move.
I just don't get why change is so hard for KC. It's so nice to fly into a nice modern airport terminal now in KC and there are still people in KC who want the old bus stop called an airport terminal back.
I hope KC wakes up and thinks through this a bit more. KC is already a bubble city on the verge of dropping down to a AAA city. It's just not growing fast enough to keep in the top 30 metros. Once KC loses the Royals, it will never ever get a MLB team back again.
I love KC, but good god. Downtown KC always feels like a total ghost town. It can be 70 degree on a beautiful work day at the noon lunch hour and there are like six people for blocks in any direction, if that. And while the P&L district can get busy, the rest of downtown is still empty at night too. Game activity may be manufactured, but anything to make that city feel like an actual city would be nice.
Kauffman Stadium has been a great stadium, but it's time to move away from it. That stadium would need hundreds of millions worth of renovations, if not over half billion and that would only get it through another 15-20 years and it still wouldn't have the a lot of things modern stadiums have. And the area around the stadium has become an embarrassment. Run down or closed motels, run down sprawl that almost feels rural, there is not even sidewalks on Blue Ridge. You are forced to uber or pay stupid fees to park. KC is one of the most expensive ballparks to park at because you have no other alternatives. I park in DC and Baltimore all the time for way less than Royals games and often free.
But mostly the Royals NEED more revenue streams. What is wrong with the Royals trying to find ways to make some money? KC is a very small market for MLB, it has almost no major corporations left there to buy season tickets and the stadium's location does not draw the young 20s-30s crowd at all. I just saw a game in KC and it was nearly all families. They need to draw from a wider demographic, especially a demographic that will spend money. The Royals don't make much off people grilling in the parking lots. This is MLB, not a college football game.
That's why the Royals are not even entertaining staying there. It just doesn't make sense.
If the voters vote this down, the Royals days are numbered. No way they stay in KC and why would people there want them to? Small market, old stadium, bad teams, tiny crowds. It will get old being the new Tampa or Oakland and there are too many cities ready to build a stadium if they could only get a team. Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, SLC, Portland etc wil build a stadium for the Royals. Seriously, once Tampa and Oakland move/get new stadiums, KC will be the team everybody will talk about moving for the next ten years, till they actually do move.
I just don't get why change is so hard for KC. It's so nice to fly into a nice modern airport terminal now in KC and there are still people in KC who want the old bus stop called an airport terminal back.
I hope KC wakes up and thinks through this a bit more. KC is already a bubble city on the verge of dropping down to a AAA city. It's just not growing fast enough to keep in the top 30 metros. Once KC loses the Royals, it will never ever get a MLB team back again.
Nice to see you back, kcmo. Now where’s Luzianne when you need her?
All that being said, people in KC like the K as it is. The stadium isn't the reason for the attendance and I think everyone knows that. When they're winning, people show up. Even a little win streak in an otherwise bad season causes a decent amount of interest.
They're used to driving and tailgating. It's a car town.
But let's be honest, that's 90% of America so perhaps folks in Kansas City are just being more honest with themselves.
I imagine a large percentage of baseball fans regardless of what city they live in or near drive to their local team's park, watch the game, and then make a beeline back home to the suburbs.
The percentage is greater than 50 for any stadium located close to a freeway, but even there, the percentages are significantly lower than they are in Kansas City where good high-capacity transit to the stadiums also exists. Philadelphia built a subway extension along with a multipurpose bowl stadium in 1971, and I can attest that plenty of fans take the train to Phillies, Eagles, Sixers and Flyers games, even though the baseball and football fields are three blocks further away from the subway now and the old bowl stadium is now a parking lot.
(Hmmm. Wonder if anyone around here in Philly has modal share data for stadium/arena trips?)
And where parking isn't plentiful but convenient transit is, as around Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago, or Yankee Stadium in New York, I strongly suspect that fewer than half the fans you see at games in those stadiums drove to them. The transit share is probably also higher for those new downtown ballparks, given that most are in cities with better mass transit service than KC.
KC's transit system may be free, but it's infrequent and doesn't cover enough of the area densely enough for the bus to be a viable alternative for many there. (And I can't imagine that RideKC doesn't run sports express buses from various points in the area; the KCATA sure did when I was young.)
Transit is bad in KC because the metro area can't figure out how to put things in places where transit can work. Moving the stadium downtown will make justifying investment in transit that much easier. Everybody wants rail to KCI, but that same rail needs to serve a lot more purposes than just KCI or it won't be cost effective. A stadium downtown will add another reason that rail from the northern suburbs to downtown might just work. KC needs critical mass.
Having said that, I generally agree with you. The vast majority of fans will always drive to a stadium in KC regardless of location and most other MLB stadiums. (there are also many stadiums where more than half use transit like the Nationals here in DC).
But with a downtown stadium, you will get 1000's of people out of a 20k crowd that not drive to the stadium. People that live and work downtown, people that are staying in downtown/crown center hotels. And this reach will be much further than Crown Center. People from Midtown, Plaza etc hotels in those same areas can easily take a streetcar or bus or a very cheap and quick uber. Even people from the suburbs can drive into the city and park along the streetcar route if they wanted too.
This all makes the city more vibrant, make transit work better, makes the city a better place.
And the Royals do not draw well. Like I mentioned above, they draw nobody in their 20s and 30's at all. They get none of the urban walk up crowd that places like DC and Denver and San Diego and Seattle get. The Nationals always seem to have a sizable crowd of young people just there enjoying the other young people regardless of how they are playing. The Royals will never have that in their location.
The Royals are barely drawing 10k a game most nights. Their attendance went to 33k for the year they won the WS and then went right back down just two years later when the team was not bad yet again and coming off two WS appearances.
They have nothing to lose. They are not drawing any fans now and they desperately need some new revenue streams that they can plow back into the team. But if all KC wants is a place to tailgate and a AA team, well that's all they will get. Eventually it will be for real though when KC swaps teams with a city like Nashville who wants MLB not minor league and they will build an actual downtown MLB stadium without hesitation.
Then KC can close the upper deck of Kuaffman I guess and let the stadium deteriorate into a minor league facility and everybody drive their pickup trucks to the stadium and drink bud lights and eat hot dogs in the parking lots and live happily ever after. At least you will have the Chiefs.
Last edited by kcmo; 09-07-2023 at 02:22 PM..
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