Is Kansas City no longer a baseball town? (Oakland: buy, moving to)

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by northbound74

Kansas City is so spread out that no matter where you put the ballpark somebody is going to complain about the distance to get there. Where it is now is as centralized as it can be without being downtown. Good freeway access and all.
Downtown would have been a bit more centralized, but then some people would complain about downtown parking.
I'm just glad the Royals are having a pretty good week with Cardinals and the Yankees and their travelling circuses.

Yeah, I get that and I don't actually have a big problem with where it is; it just is a pain having to deal with rush hour traffic out of downtown when you go to an evening game and in addition to that drive so far past downtown to get to it. That never deterred me when I was younger, though.

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by luzianne

When my kids were young, prices for GA were reasonable and we could afford to go to Royals games. I was shocked when I saw how much GA tickets are these days. I'm sure that keeps a lot of people from going to the games. .

Can't you still get weekday tickets for like as low as $9-10? You could a couple of years ago.

[northbound74]

This is a thought I've had about KC: it still is a baseball town, I think, but not as much of a Royal's town as it once was. 25 years of losing and bad ownership does that.
It's undoubtedly a sports town, a good one at that, but can be a bit fair-weather. There is a reason for the cynicism if winning is all you're after.
Think of all the kids you see with Cardinals shirts or Red Sox hats. Being associated with the Royals isn't cool, not even in the immediate Kansas City metro much of the time. That's gotta stop if they want to keep MLB in town.
Things are slowly looking up on the field, but I'm afraid it's going to take a string of playoff appearances and at least one or two showings in the World Series to stop the bleeding.

[luzianne]

Dick Howser was a great manager and IMO we haven't had a great one like that since. That may be part of it too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o5smgnl8wA

[SPonteKC]

Originally Posted by northbound74

Kansas City is so spread out that no matter where you put the ballpark somebody is going to complain about the distance to get there.

KC is not particularly spread out by midwestern standards. Its about middle of the pack for people per square mile in the urbanized area.

[Ztonyg]

I believe a good analogy to the current situation that the Royals are going through now would be the Detroit Tigers.

From 1994 - 2005 the Tigers were a cellar dwelling, sub .500 team with very low fan support. Until 2000 they also played in a stadium that, while historians loved it and miss it, was an obsolete and had very little TLC (or even new paint) since the late 1980s/early 1990s. The Tigers built and opened a new downtown ballpark in 2000 (which was actually a liability in Detroit up until about 2007/2008) and finally started playing good ball in 2005 and for such an economically depressed city / area as Detroit is, the Tigers have been doing quite well attendance wise with better teams.

The attendance for the Royals will come back once the team starts consistently playing winning baseball.

[kcmo]

Royals are a wild card team right now and they are very fun to watch (we watch most games). I hope KC gets some nice walk up crowds for the next homestand and maybe averages 25k. It might help keep the team going in the right direction to know they have a fan base behind them.

[TabulaRasa]

Hanging out with my BIL in Chicago while the Royals beat his beloved Sox was fun times this weekend.

[OuttaTheLouBurbs]

Outsider weighing in here. Could attendance for the Royals possibly be low because of the stadium and its location? Here in StL, people like the Cards not only because they're good, but because games are a fun social experience and there are plenty of things to do before and after the game. People go to bars before and after games to socialize and drink. There are a lot of things to do close to the ballpark, due to Busch's downtown location, and Cards fans take advantage of them as part of the baseball experience.

In contrast, KC's stadium is older, but more importantly, its location is less than stellar. Whereas Busch Stadium is close to bars and restaurants, KC's ballpark is surrounded by a parking lot. Not exactly an attractive or lively surrounding. There aren't as many things to contribute to the "baseball experience" as there are in many downtown ballparks.

Of course, I might be wrong. After all, someone mentioned the Indians' downtown stadium and how they still have bad attendance. Though to be honest, Cleveland never really struck me as a baseball town, they seem more geared towards basketball.

And to be honest, another reason for StL's high attendance might just be alcoholism. StL is big on beer (what do you expect from the birthplace of Anheuser-Busch?), and baseball games often involve much alcohol drinking as part of the experience, so that could also be a big driver for attendance.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by OuttaTheLouBurbs

Outsider weighing in here. Could attendance for the Royals possibly be low because of the stadium and its location? Here in StL, people like the Cards not only because they're good, but because games are a fun social experience and there are plenty of things to do before and after the game. People go to bars before and after games to socialize and drink. There are a lot of things to do close to the ballpark, due to Busch's downtown location, and Cards fans take advantage of them as part of the baseball experience.

In contrast, KC's stadium is older, but more importantly, its location is less than stellar. Whereas Busch Stadium is close to bars and restaurants, KC's ballpark is surrounded by a parking lot. Not exactly an attractive or lively surrounding. There aren't as many things to contribute to the "baseball experience" as there are in many downtown ballparks.

Of course, I might be wrong. After all, someone mentioned the Indians' downtown stadium and how they still have bad attendance. Though to be honest, Cleveland never really struck me as a baseball town, they seem more geared towards basketball.

And to be honest, another reason for StL's high attendance might just be alcoholism. StL is big on beer (what do you expect from the birthplace of Anheuser-Busch?), and baseball games often involve much alcohol drinking as part of the experience, so that could also be a big driver for attendance.

I honestly think you could put the Cards anywhere and they would still draw very well. St Louis is by far the best baseball market in all of MLB with Boston a distant second IMO.

You have a metro area of under 3 million that consistently draws over 40,000 every single game and that's been going on for about as long as I can remember.

Although I do think the downtown location helps for some of the reasons you mentioned. A downtown park in KC would probably increase the weekday crowds quite a bit and I think it would even help weekend crowds. but winning and tradition is what StL has going for it. StL has been a baseball town long before KC was in the majors. And how many times has StL been to the series? Second to only the Yankees right? I'm sure that has a lot to do with it too.

While I do think that a downtown park would have helped the Royals draw better, that has never been my point. Even if the Royals only draw 20,000 a game, that's 20k more people downtown 80 times a year using hotels, transit etc. A downtown park just would have done so much more for KC than Kauffman does.