After a year of anteing up tidbits and teasers, Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman has shoved all his chips to center table.
It’s a huge bet that Kansas City and Jackson County will come up with the bulk of $2 billion to finance a new downtown baseball stadium, to be ready by the time the Royals’ lease of Kauffman Stadium expires in 2031.
Until Tuesday, when Sherman laid out his plan in an open letter to “Royals fans and the Kansas City community,” the idea of a new stadium was sort of fanciful — at least to me — and a shot in the dark.
But now it’s out there in black and white, and green, and we have to deal with it. Here are some of the questions the community will have to cope with…
:: How would a downtown stadium be paid for?
:: Are the Royals — a small-market, mostly cellar-dwelling team — worth that kind of investment?
:: How long would people go to the stadium in large numbers to see a mostly perennially losing team?
:: Would Sherman move the team to another city — not Lenexa or KCK, but Louisville or Nashville — if his proposed abandonment of Kauffman Stadium is rejected?
This is all very difficult to swallow. We’ve had it so good for so long with the Truman Sports Complex on I-70. It was the best-ever stadium deal anywhere, by far. As a result of a 1967 bond issue that required two-thirds voter approval, we got two stadiums, complete with access roads, all for the bargain-basement price of $100 million.
(To give you an idea of how far $100 million goes these days, that’s the price tag on a two-hotel project, with a total of about 300 rooms, going up near 46th and Broadway.)
And even though hundreds of millions of additional dollars have been poured into Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, both facilities remain top notch…Well, I have to admit I can’t say that first hand about Arrowhead because I quit going to games there several years ago, but I sure haven’t heard any complains about the facility.
…Now, let’s get back to those questions I posed above.
How would a downtown stadium be paid for?
Sherman is looking primarily at the city rather than the county, which built the Truman Sports Complex. The project Sherman has in mind is out of the county’s league, and that’s why most of the questions about a downtown stadium have been put to Mayor Quinton Lucas instead of County Executive Frank White.
Only the city could take the lead on a project of this scale. My guess is Lucas and the other members of the City Council would ask voters to approve a hefty sales tax to finance the bulk of the cost. They might consider an increase in the one-percent earnings tax, but I think they would decide against that because it could drive a lot of residents out of the city. A sales tax, on the other hand, while it hits hardest those who can least afford to pay, seems like nickel-and-dime outlays to most people.
The county would still have a role. Without a doubt, the County Legislature would put to voters an extension of an existing three-eighth-cent sales tax that voters approved in 2006 to finance sports complex improvements. The tax is scheduled to expire in 2031.
Are the Royals worth that kind of investment?
It doesn’t seem like it, does it? I think I went to one game this year, by far the least number of games I’ve ever been to in a season. The problem isn’t just with the team’s win-loss record; it’s also with the TV situation. Unless you have cable TV — which a lot of people, including us, have given up — it’s difficult or very expensive to catch Royals games. And what happens when you can’t easily watch the games? You lose connection with the team and interest in it.
How long would people go to the stadium in large numbers to see a mostly perennially losing team?
Two or three seasons at most, I would say. Of course, it would be a novelty, even exciting, at first, but the blush would wear off pretty soon without remarkably different results on the field.
And think about the thousands and thousands of people who currently come from nearby states, mostly Iowa and Nebraska, for games and outings to the Plaza and Westport. They’re used to shooting down I-29 or I-35 and pulling into the spacious, surface parking lots at Arrowhead and Kauffman and getting out just as easily, with few worries about their personal safety.
It would be different downtown. Oh, yeah. In the minds of most out-of-towners all kinds of terrible things could happen downtown, the least of which would be finding close-in parking. And the price of parking? Forget the deals we get on downtown parking now — $15 to $20. It would shoot up to $50 to $60, easy.
Would Sherman move the team to another city?
That’s the two billion dollar question, and I don’t have an answer. But unlike the previous sports-franchise owners we’ve had, other than Ewing Kauffman, Sherman is not an absentee owner. He lives in Kansas City. And I mean Kansas City, not Mission Hills, like Kauffman did. So, he deserves a lot of credit, and earns a load of goodwill, for that.
But keep in mind he was part owner for years of the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) and is a successful businessman. (He made his fortune in the energy business.)
In his nearly three-page, open letter, he said nothing about what might happen if he’s denied a new downtown stadium. Nevertheless, the words “would he move the team” hang unwritten over every paragraph.
The big advantage he’s got is that unlike the absentee sports-franchise owners we’ve had, including the Glass family in the past and the Hunt family currently, Sherman has a deep trough of goodwill with many residents. I’ve got friends who say, “He wants to do something good for Kansas City.”
I believe them, but at the same time I wonder, “Don’t we already have something pretty damn good with the sports complex? And is there any reason it shouldn’t last another 50 years with some improvements along the way?”
…Man, this is a tough one. As a community and individually, we’re going to be chewing on this piece of rawhide for a long time. As I sit here tonight, I don’t know exactly how I feel about it. But I do know that with today’s letter, Sherman has not only thrown the biggest pitch of his life, but he’s also officially started the arm-twisting.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I like the general concept, but I’m very curious about how the 3/8ths cent sales tax to maintain the Truman Sports Complex, (both Arrowhead and Kauffman) will be split under the new plan or if this plan assumes that baseball gets it all?
Good point, Bill…If the Chiefs should move to Kansas, as has been discussed, the tax revenue would go exclusively toward the downtown stadium. But if they stayed at the sports complex, I guess it would be split evenly. A lot would depend, I presume, on how the law is written.
The only issue Royals Chairman/CEO John Sherman should be concerned about now is developing a consistently competitive team. Presently, the Royals are consistently among the worst three teams in MLB. His hands will be full just putting a better quality product on the field.
Joe Vaughan
Prairie Village
It seems weird thinking of Kauffman Stadium as aging, old. I don’t see it as decrepit, like Yankee Stadium in the early ’70s or Comiskey in its last year, 1990. The facility itself should comfortably accommodate crowds well past 2053, if you compare it to Comiskey’s longevity. No, this is just an attempt to pick the public’s pocket for the benefit of downtown commercial interests and at the expense of taxpayers and consumers. It’s Sherman sneering at baseball fans, treating them merely as marks, just as he did with the Bally Sports television contract you referenced.
To your point about Kauffman Stadium’s longevity, Steve, I just learned that Dodger Stadium is 11 years older than Kauffman (opened in 1962) and had a $100 million renovation within the past three years.
Also, Sherman’s assertion that “the renovations required at The K to achieve our objectives would cost as much or or more than the price tag to develop a new ballpark” is ludicrous. Taken literally, that could only mean his “objectives” are on par with those of the Rams’ and Chargers’ $4.9 billion stadium in L.A.
I know some Royals season ticket holders. They are against the move. They are for renovating/fixing whatever needs to be done at Kauffman.
Unless the team gets dramatically better the next 2-3 years, I would be surprised that the necessary Kansas City voter support will be available to pay for a new downtown stadium. The city is about maxed out under Missouri law on the sales tax rate. I do not see that as a viable option. I’ve seen a TIF option mentioned, but we have seen how that has worked with the Power and Light district. If the Royals are asking for public money, city and county officials should get to the see the Royals’ accounting books to see what the financial state of the team is to truly assess the need for taxpayer dollars.
Most city residents cannot afford to go to a game and cannot see them on television. That will affect any vote.
Left unsaid is a good part of the season ticket base is on the Kansas side of the state line. When will the day finally come that they are asked to kick in money for things like the Royals? They benefit as much as the city does.
Stadium opponents are going to point to the fact that the KC Current owners are building their own $100-million-plus soccer stadium with minimal taxpayer support and wonder why a team with much more income like the Royals cannot do the same.
Another thing I learned today is that Sherman has hired public relations expert Roshann Parris to work on the downtown-stadium campaign. Parris founded her firm, Parris Communications, in 1988. According to its website, the company specializes in “strategic corporate communications, media relations, public affairs and crisis communications.”
I can see this project testing both Sherman’s and Parris’ skill at crisis communications.
Yeah, let’s increase the sales tax, which is already one of the highest for a major U.S. city…No thanks. And then let’s not forget about Clark Hunt. I doubt he will sit by and let the Royals get a free deal without the Chiefs profiting even more. Guess both teams can threaten to move, but I am sure Mayor Lucas will cave in. After all he is all about enabling his development buddies to drain the average citizens dry. I’m not even going to get into the lack of support from the deadbeats in Johnson County who want us to pay for everything with zero cost to them.
I knew we could count on you for an uplifting assessment, Richard!
I’m sure that the state of Missouri will cave, too.
Sherman’s proposal is just the beginning of a long discussion of what should happen regarding a stadium for the Royals, so I’m not going to get too worked up at this point.
But I will ask one question: In his 3-page letter, did Sherman ever say how much of the $2 billion cost for this extensive project will specifically be used to construct a new ballpark vs. the other components of the project? I think the answer is “no.” It would be helpful to know how much he thinks the new ballpark itself would cost.
I see Frank White, the Jackson County Executive, put out a release Tuesday night saying any announcement from the Royals was extremely preliminary. He seemed to infer there had not even been discussions occurring with county. I know I had read that the Kansas City city manager said this summer they had not heard from the Royals for some time about anything related to the stadium.
This now seems to be a trial balloon to get local reaction. Even the sports talkers I heard on Wednesday were saying the Royals would need to put up at least 50% of the money to make it attractive to voters. And their feeling was the Royals are not thinking about putting up anywhere near that kind of money. Also discussed was how much this would impact the Power and Light district which Kansas City taxpayers are already subsiding at $20 million plus a year.
On one of the Royals’ fan sites, one commenter noted that one of the minority owners of the Royals is J.E. Dunn Company who would benefit greatly in multiple ways from construction of a new stadium and adjacent facilities.
I talked to a season ticket holder yesterday afternoon. They continue to be against a new downtown stadium. They also said they received their invoice for their 2023 season tickets and the Royals had increased the price. I told them the Cubs cut the price of their season ticket package after their current bad year (which was not as bad as the Royals). Another bad PR move.
Considering the Royals said they are not planning on spending more on payroll in 2023, it really makes you wonder what is going on over there to make things attractive to getting fans back and support what they want to do.
Let Sherman raise the money by creating a foundation to which his rich friends can contribute.