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First off, are you talking about Sporting KC? If so, you are not correct. The Royals still averaging more per game and a lot more per season.
Also, I consider MLS a major league, not minor. While I kind of think the location of the Sporting stadium is very minor leaguish (next to minor league baseball park in suburban retail district), I think the venue itself is major league caliber.
Let’s compare support:
Royals, despite some modest increases in attendance and slightly better records they are still pretty at much rock bottom as far as fan support. It can’t get a lot worse for the Royals, they don’t have much further to fall, but they could rise in popularity with a few years of competitive teams.
Yet last year they drew 21,614 per game and 1,750,754 for the year.
Sporting KC has probably already peaked in fan support coming off a national championship and several years of playoff seasons in a brand new stadium. While I think they will continue to draw well, I don’t see demand increasing much. If anything, things may start to decrease a little as the team goes through any long losing streaks and the stadium newness wears off.
Last year they drew 19,709 per game and 335,058 for the year.
So the Royals are still outdrawing the MLS team. Look at Seattle if you want to see an MLS team truly outdraw a MLB team. Although the Mariners may draw more overall do to more games (don't feel like looking it up).
I root for the Royals and the stadium is nice, but the team certainly doesn't help itself. First, it pisses me off that most people seem to spend their time on the goofy carousel and mini baseball park in the back...people need to come to watch the game...if your kids don't have an attention span for baseball, don't bring them to the game...rent a bounce house or something instead. The amusement park in the back just adds to the Royals loser mentality - anything to distract you from the product on the field. Go to Yankee Stadium, Fenway, or Camden and you will see that's it's all geared towards watching the game - not taking your attention away from it.
Second, ownership needs to generate a lot more goodwill towards the fans. The front office is completely tone-deaf towards the frustrations of a fan base that still cares after 30+ years of not even going to a playoff game!
Third, they need to stop selling the Royals in the "Wal-mart way". Ownership's pitch is essentially: "Hey Rubes! Come see what baseball looks like at this neat ballpark...you can even see your favorite team (Red Sox, Yankees, or Cardinals) while all of those kids you have can enjoy the distractions including the creepy mascot and bush-league kitch...the tickets are super cheap and as long as you don't care about how the team plays you too will get to experience what it's like to have big-city amenities even though you live in what would be a minor-league town." They may as well be selling baseball tickets with the "Great Value" brand on them. They skimp on every dollar - even if any of the current crop of "prospects" ever panned out (not likely), ownership would never even think of re-signing them. The ultimate insult is that the Cardinals and Yankees will be here this week, and the Glass family will cash in by selling Cards and Yankees memorabilia to a half/half crowd in terms of loyalty. It's embarrassing.
Fourth, ownership and GM don't know how to develop players and focus on the wrong things. If you are gonna run a club on the cheap, at least DO IT RIGHT! Talk to Billy Beane and figure out how he assembles a team with far less money that wins consistently. Value SABRMETRICS at least a little! Getting on base counts, and scoring runs counts. Last year the excuse was they didn't want to hit too many home runs because they are "rally killers". This was after Yost fired Kevin Sietzer because the lineup wasn't hitting enough home runs! F that...that's just the cheap-ass Royals ownership pissing on their fansbase.
Finally, the small market excuse is bull. Forbes values the team at $500 million dollars, and yes they got a terrible TV contract. If anything the Forbes valuation might be understated - they recently valued the Clippers at under $1 Billion, and the team just sold for $2 Billion! But these guys cannot cry poor year after year, while other small markets have proven that winning is certainly possible without getting into the Yankees/Dodgers/Red Sox arms race. If STL, Cincy, and Pittsburgh can invest in good baseball, so too can the Royals.
Other than that, I got no complaints. I enjoy going and grabbing a beer, sitting in the sun, and watching a game.
Last edited by KC_Sleuth; 06-03-2014 at 03:02 PM..
And, of course, we all knew all along that that was the fire in your belly for the thread.
Put a downtown ball park in KC and attendance would be down another 20% within 10 years....after the silliness subsided.
Yeah because all those great downtown/urban ballparks have resulted in "silliness". The place you live in has one of the best parks in the MLB - AT&T Park is located right in the city! Boy that must really suck to have so much activity in one area - not to mention one of the best parks in the entire league. Ask St. Louis how much of a burden it is to have an urban ballpark (oh wait, they f--king fill it consistently?). Or New York. Or Chicago.
But keep clinging to being a second rate city KC! Because in a few years nobody will want to be anywhere near downtown San Francisco and it will be cheap again? If you believe that I have some oceanfront property in AZ to sell...
There's a reason why only the best and brightest people can afford to live in America's great cities - it's not because those cities suck.
I think it goes deeper than the obvious issues like location and "baseball is boring". I never hear anybody excitedly mention they went to any game anywhere I've lived the last few years.
The American economy hasn't been on solid ground since 9/11. Even sitting in the cheap seats, a family of four will spend a weeks worth of food to attend a single game. There is a huge disconnect between teams and their fans. Players are viewed as multi-millionaires who've already "won", with little incentive to perform. And the fans are just people to milk more money from with $5 hot dogs and $3 tiny cups of soda.
I think the fan base of all sports are losing out to high tech, relatively cheap home entertainment. Back when I was a kid we went to Cubs games on summer afternoons because there really was nothing else to do for a kid that grew up in the chicago area.
Sports are now competing with xbox, the 3d tv, netflix, computers, 500 cable channels, ipods, smartphones, facebook, guitar hero, and probably a hundred other things I can't think of.
Prosperity is eluding many families and it's probably more noticeable at a stadium like the K that's far from the downtown core and tourism. Nor are the Royals a spectacular team, that is when wealthier fans would be drawn from further away lending to the illusion of a stronger fan base, it is why larger markets can continue to fill stadiums.
Tourism and downtown visitors would have probably helped sustain the team amidst the above issues and KC missed the boat on that one, having nothing to fall back on, despite the fact the K is the most asthetically pleasing park in mlb.
So again, a winning team, thanks to the bandwagon, mask the above issues with broader appeal, but the local support will continue to decline unless KC can figure out a way to attract tourism to the area.
Prosperity is eluding many families and it's probably more noticeable at a stadium like the K that's far from the downtown core and tourism. Nor are the Royals a spectacular team, that is when wealthier fans would be drawn from further away lending to the illusion of a stronger fan base, it is why larger markets can continue to fill stadiums.
They were talking about this on the local sports channels this afternoon. They had an attendance of 11k seats last night to the Royals-Cards series in a year after the Royals had their first competitive season in 25 years. General fan sentiment on the radio was (among callers): "novelty on the stadium renovations wore off, and there is very little reason to go out to the middle of nowhere for a game...if it were near somewhere where there were entertainment options (restaurants, etc.) maybe I would go..."
I agree...love the park, hate the location. There is a reason people rave about places like Wrigleyville and AT&T Park and Fenway and hate ballparks in the middle of nowhere like Tampa, Arlington, Comisky II...you can have much more fun at home with a 12-pack and an HD TV broadcast of the game unless you have the entertainment options around you to draw you to the area. The new Ballpark Village in STL is a perfect example...spent a few days there with a friend in late April and had a blast - didn't even leave the area once in 3 days, and saw a Blues game to boot! There were a ton of dining and nightlife options right down near the sporting venues, which make it easy to have some fun before/after games.
They were talking about this on the local sports channels this afternoon. They had an attendance of 11k seats last night to the Royals-Cards series in a year after the Royals had their first competitive season in 25 years. General fan sentiment on the radio was (among callers): "novelty on the stadium renovations wore off, and there is very little reason to go out to the middle of nowhere for a game...if it were near somewhere where there were entertainment options (restaurants, etc.) maybe I would go..."
I agree...love the park, hate the location. There is a reason people rave about places like Wrigleyville and AT&T Park and Fenway and hate ballparks in the middle of nowhere like Tampa, Arlington, Comisky II...you can have much more fun at home with a 12-pack and an HD TV broadcast of the game unless you have the entertainment options around you to draw you to the area. The new Ballpark Village in STL is a perfect example...spent a few days there with a friend in late April and had a blast - didn't even leave the area once in 3 days, and saw a Blues game to boot! There were a ton of dining and nightlife options right down near the sporting venues, which make it easy to have some fun before/after games.
Royals had 22k last night, not 11k. There were at least 15k Cards fans there. Pretty sad situation really. Barely half the stadium was filled and most were wearing red.
The Royals fan base is just gone..... Not much left of this once proud franchise and its fan base. KC was once a great baseball town. KC is not Tampa or Miami, baseball was a part of KC's culture just like it's still is in many cities.
Again, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore are what I would consider similar to KC in baseball culture and market size and KC should be drawing close to what they draw (25-30k) rather than barely drawing 20k and much of that is just do to Cards, Yankees, Twins and Red Sox fans.
Oh well...
If you have ever seen a game in Denver, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Diego and many others, stadium location does matter. The location of the stadium is half the draw. Milwaukee is an exception to the rule. They are still very much a baseball town.
The Royals fan base isn't gone. In game attendance has gone down, yes, but how has the fact that the TV ratings last season went through the roof not been mentioned?
It's not one thing contributing to decreased attendance. It's a whole bunch of things. It's a crappy location, it's expensive to go to games, the at home experience does nothing but get better and better. And really the Royals aren't THAT bad this year, so it's not really that the team is crappy. My problem is the delusional mindset from ownership and the front office. Most of those other teams in those other cities that you mentioned, KCMO, probably haven't had a front office telling the fan base that they need to "be patient" or "this is our year" or "next year is our year," or "respect the process" for the last 29 years. I'm just saying at a certain point it comes down to putting a winner on the field for the average Royals fan.
I'm going to go to my 10-20 games a year every year no matter what and watch as many as I can on TV, but for an entire generation's lifespan, the Royals haven't sniffed the playoffs. Last year doesn't count. Even in their hottest stretch last season after the All Star break they had like a 7% chance of making the playoffs. But to have the front office come out and say "we get more love outside of Kansas City" is just ridiculous. It's like they think because we're Kansas City, not New York, we're supposed to just be happy and "ah shucks at least we have a team." So I don't blame people for not going to the games. It can be a pretty big financial commitment to take a risk on watching your team's pitcher show up with dead arm and get blasted for 7 runs in four innings.
And another thing, go to any bar in Kansas City on any night the Royals are playing, and I can guarantee you the game will be on and there will be a good number of people watching it and cheering/jeering openly. So I think you're being a little melodramatic by saying the fan base is "gone." I think it's far from it. Unfortunately they just have to make up for a lot, like 29 years worth of disappointment, to really get people wanting to come back to the stadium on a consistent basis.
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. There is also the price of parking. Food is expensive. Beer is expensive. It's a pain in the butt to get to the stadium so there are times when we might go if it were closer, but it's way out in BFE and by the time you drive there, watch the game, and drive home, it's a 5 hour ordeal. So considering the cost and the time to travel there and back, it's just easier and cheaper to stay home and watch it on TV.
And I'd just like to say that Ball Park and Plumpers were MUCH better hot dogs than the Farmland brand that they have now. Yes, I know Farmland is local. But they're not as good. The texture is almost mushy (more so than a hot dog is normally). I know there are different stands with different types/brands of hot dogs, but the last time I got one it was a Farmland hot dog and was very disappointing. Other than the Farmland stuff, I think the stadium has some more/different/better choices than they used to have.
I went to a game in San Diego the other night. It was okay, but I wasn't that impressed. Kaufmann is a MUCH nicer stadium and much prettier. Petco Park wasn't very full at all; lots of empty seats. Getting out of the parking lot was a piece of cake compared to Kaufmann, I assume because of fewer people/fewer cars.
I grew up with baseball - my dad listening to Kansas City A's games on a transistor radio on hot summer nights.
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. I could see the glow of the lights and the tips of the fireworks from my backyard when I lived there, so no complaints from me.
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 in town.
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