Six questions for the Kansas City Royals
Today is July 31st and my former colleagues at the Kansas City Star ran an editorial this morning with the headline “Fans want wins before a new stadium” and it inspired me to finish this piece and post it.
I’m no longer in the press box or in the clubhouse so I’ve got no “inside” information, but I do have a few questions from the outside.
1. Why don’t the Chiefs want a new stadium?
According to the following Kansas City Business Journal article (updated on August 1, 2022 and it’s the latest thing I could find on the subject) Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt has said he wants to keep the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium and prefers renovation instead of moving and that’s about all I can tell you because to read the entire article you have to subscribe to the Business Journal and I don’t.
Nevertheless…
If things are so bad at Kauffman Stadium why and how are the Chiefs OK with Arrowhead?
They were built at the same time by the same people and yet Arrowhead is acceptable to the team that plays there and Kauffman Stadium isn’t.
2. How have Fenway Park and Wrigley Field stayed current?
Every team in baseball wants a “destination stadium” which means a stadium so popular that fans will buy tickets to see it even if the teams sucks.
Far too many owners (and just one would qualify) think you can build a ballpark with microbreweries and roller coasters and then the ballpark will become that destination stadium they dream of because building new ballparks is much easier than building good teams. It works to some degree right after a new park opens because taxpayers want to see what they paid for, but if the team continues to suck fans eventually stop coming.
So why do Fenway and Wrigley continue to pack in fans even when the teams aren’t winning?
History.
Fenway was built in 1912 (the same year the Titanic sunk and Kate wouldn’t let Leo share her piano) and Wrigley was built in 1914 and people still go there because they want to see where Babe Ruth Called His Shot and Ted Williams told Boston fans to kiss his ass and you don’t get that kind of baseball history if you keep changing ballparks.
The Texas Rangers got a Brand New Ballpark – Globe Life Park in Arlington – in 1994 and yet another Brand New Park – Globe Life Field – in 2020.
According to the internet, they needed a new field a decade-and-a-half later because it’s really fucking hot in Texas (who knew?) and members of the ownership group (which included George W. Bush) felt baseball should be played outdoors – even in Texas – which might have been George W.’s worst decision if you don’t count invading Iraq.
Also, I’m guessing not too many members of the ownership group had to sit in the sun when it was 135 in the shade so it seems likely they didn’t take that into account when they built the first park. As I’ve pointed out before and no doubt will again, when they build new ballparks they screw up all the time so don’t buy into the idea that a new park will be perfect because it won’t.
Also, I don’t trust assurances that there will be enough parking and getting in and out of the park will not be an issue and we should quit worrying our pretty little heads about it and just start handing out money.
Anyway…
Somehow Fenway and Wrigley have just kept renovating and adding on and now both are Baseball Shrines that fans travel a long way to see even when the Cubs and Red Sox have losing records.
3. How are you getting fans across the Missouri River?
The Royals started with approximately 147 possible sites for their new ballpark and are now down to two and since I’m at least skeptical if not cynical it might not be a coincidence that they’re letting Jackson County taxpayers know if they don’t give the team what it wants they might move the Royals to North Kansas City which as the name indicates is north of the river.
Which brings up what should be an interesting question: if you move to North Kansas City how are you getting baseball fans across the Missouri River every night?
There are a limited number of bridges between North Kansas City and downtown Kansas City and say the Royals have a packed house, you might have 38,000 people wanting to cross the river at the same time.
On the other hand, if the Royals keep playing the way they are there won’t be much of a crowd fighting for space on a bridge so it could all work out.
4. Why will the new stadium be an economic success when others haven’t?
I once read an entire book about stadium economics so you don’t have to (you’re welcome) and here’s the short version:
The economic benefits of building new ballparks are exaggerated by the people who want to build and make money off them, but sports facilities mostly move money and jobs from one area of your city to another (when you go to a ballgame you aren’t going to a restaurant or movie so those businesses suffer) and the only money that should be counted is the money spent by visitors who wouldn’t come to your city if not for the ballpark or stadium.
And if your a city is a regional draw with or without a stadium – and Kansas City is – the benefits of the new ballpark aren’t nearly as awesome as the people who want to build it will lead you to believe.
Now here’s an article from a website I never heard of by a guy I also never heard of written in 2018 (it was the most recent thing I could find after a minute-and-a-half of internet research) that says the Power & Light District mainly moved money around Kansas City and didn’t do all that much to create new money:
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/subsidies/the-power-light-district-still-hasnt-delivered/
As you might recall we needed to build what became T-Mobile Center because once we built it we’d automatically land an NBA or NHL team and as Mike Myers might say, monkeys would fly out our butts.
The Star editorial quoted the Economic Liberties Project, which “monitors corporate accountability and analyzes public subsidy deals” and according to them most stadium deals are: “just a money pit for taxpayers.”
5. How “hands-on” is John Sherman?
If you’re a sports fan you probably know George Steinbrenner owned the New York Yankees and Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys and John Sherman owns the Kansas City Royals.
Who owns the Miami Heat?
The answer is Micky Arison – he made his money with Carnival Cruise Lines – and the reason you probably didn’t know his name is Micky is smart enough to shut the fuck up and let Pat Riley run his team.
Now here’s an article from Forbes “Our Links Are Way Too Long” Magazine about Arison which credits his “light touch” for the Miami Heat’s success and the article points out that during the Heat’s most recent playoff appearance Micky avoided the cameras and did not respond to requests for an interview:
Here’s what Micky said back in 2013:
“My philosophy is, hire the best people you can hire, and let them do their job. In all our businesses, that’s my approach. It’s not to micromanage people because you’re not going to get great people if you micromanage them.”
Some sports team owners love the spotlight because they go from being a rich guy you never heard of to a rich guy who gets to sign autographs and do interviews.
John Sherman appears to enjoy that and a while back he held what was an almost hour-long press conference when nobody asked him to and he writes open letters and promises to provide more details in the future which will probably mean yet another press conference, all of which is fine I guess as long as he deals with team-owner type issues like conning the taxpayers into buying him a new ballpark.
But when you get a shipping executive or an oil executive or a guy who makes paper products deciding they know more than the people who have been playing and coaching baseball all their lives, you’ve got a problem.
Not long ago a coach (not with the Royals) said team owners love analytics because they now have numbers to quote and a college-graduate-numbers guy to back them up and that makes them think they know baseball and can make baseball decisions, but as anyone who has been around the game long enough can tell you there are a whole bunch of things that matter, but still don’t show up in the numbers.
John Sherman has been very vocal about building a new ballpark; how vocal has he been on building a team to play in it?
Which brings us to our final question.
6. How will a new ballpark change the team philosophy?
Good teams have a philosophy, bad teams have way too many of them.
Baseball is unique for a number of reasons and one of them is outfield configurations aren’t the same in every ballpark. So it’s kinda like the NFL allowing some teams to have fields that are 110 yards long and other teams to have fields 95 yards long or NBA teams deciding how far off the ground their hoops should be and I for one wouldn’t mind seeing that which is probably why I haven’t been offered the job of NFL or NBA Commissioner.
In any case…
If you play in a ballpark the approximate size of Nova Scotia you need outfielders who can cover ground and you’re not going to spend a lot of money on home run hitters because they’ll just hit a lot of fly balls to the warning track and you can draft pitchers who get a lot of fly balls in play because your fast outfielders will run them down.
Ballparks define team philosophies and having a philosophy means you know what kind of players you need and it might take some time for those players to work their way through your system.
But if the front office – or in many cases the team owner – panics and changes the manager and changes the pitching coach and changes the hitting coach and changes the general manager and changes the philosophy, now you’ve spent years acquiring the wrong kind of player and working on the wrong stuff so it’s like starting over every few years and those teams tend to spin their wheels for decades because nobody’s got the balls to stick to a philosophy long enough for it to pay off.
Since Sherman bought the Royals there has been a lot of turnover and you gotta wonder if that will continue – firing people when things don’t work out – and if it does the Royals aren’t “headed in the right direction” because every few seasons they’ll change their minds about what direction that actually is.
And don’t forget a new stadium probably means new dimensions and if it does that means the Royals have been drafting and developing the wrong players.
As I pointed out at the beginning, the Star editorial stated “Royals fans want wins before a new stadium” and at least one Royals fan wouldn’t mind hearing some answers.
Thank You again. New Stadium "Money Pit for taxpayers" translation BOONDOGGLE. Mr. Judge does it again. Man makes GOOD SENSE.
This is a good one.