This won’t be that long of a story. I just saw this tonight, and it made me laugh for one reason. It is something that I am seeing more of the last few years with certain media outlets.
But let’s start at the beginning. In April 2024, residents of Jackson County, Missouri voted definitively not to extend a 40-year sales tax that would have funded repairs to the Kansas City Chiefs stadium and help build a new ballpark for the Kansas City Royals. Both teams did just about everything in their power to frustrate their fans before the vote. The Royals approach to the vote was, at least I think, to confuse everyone about every detail of their potential ballpark. Agreements that should have been finished months ago, were completed just a week or two before the sales tax vote, leaving people with little opportunity to read or review the documents for themselves.
The Royals have spent the last 2 years publicly discussing countless different sites and giving themselves fake deadlines for when the ballpark location would be announced. Everything else? Unclear since the team would not share anything substantive detail wise…all the while asking taxpayers for massive public funds. Since the sales tax was shot down by locals, the Royals thought it would be a good idea to “float…other locations where they could move to”. I am sure Royals fans can’t wait for many more potential ballpark locations to be announced in the future.
Months have gone by and there are still plenty of unknowns about whether the Royals will be able to get a new ballpark built with taxpayer support. Then I came across a story from the KC Business Journal discussing how “local business groups” were pressing local leaders to create a “realistic and positive public-private partnership” that keeps the Royals and Chiefs in the city long-term. The KC Business Journal also emphasized that these groups wanted “decisive action to ensure the teams feel confident in making the decision to stay in the region”. I am sure most people will see this headline and think nothing of it.
But when you look at these so-called “local business groups” or “civic groups”, it doesn’t take that long to realize that every group has a connection to the Royals, hence this public campaign of asking local leaders to help the teams feel “more confident”. The team needs any PR help that it can get from anyone, especially local business leaders.
So what groups am I talking about?
ThinkKC — This group is looking to bring “business to the Kansas City area” while acting as the city’s chief marketing agency. Let’s see who are some investors of this group…Business Journal, Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals…among others. What a shock.
The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce — This is a group of businesses in the area that have influence over a lot of the business interests. Who sits on their Board of Directors? The Royals President does…as does the head of the Business Journal.
The Civic Council of Greater Kansas City — This group tries to “unite businesses” in the area…whatever that means. The owner of the Royals just happens to be a member.
Since 2023, the Royals have been swearing to fans that they will be super transparent in the future of the club. It never comes true. As the Kansas City Star wrote in an editorial late last year, both the Royals and Chiefs publicly claimed that they must be better about informing the public of the details as the processing is moving forward. Except, as the Star found out…“It’s still not happening”. If we go back to 2023, the Royals owner issued a letter to fans arguing that a new ballpark for the team would undoubtedly create substantial community benefit programs, large economic activities and additional new jobs! Except, the Royals had nothing that claimed these assertions to be true. As has been shown over the last decade, Royals executives are willing to say anything if it gets them a new ballpark. One of the biggest reasons that the sales tax vote failed last year was due to residents having no idea how much exactly they were being asked to give to the team. Was it the $1B pitch that the Royals publicly claimed? Or was it $1.7B as some feared?
Wherever the Royals look, residents seem to be ready and set to fight the team from moving into their neighborhood. Last year, the Royals admitted to wanting to build a new ballpark in a section of the city called “Crossroads”. A local media outlet, KCTV5, asked residents who lived here whether they wanted the Royals to move into their backyard…and the answer was most definitely no. The Royals then entertained whether they should or could build a new ballpark in Washington State Park. That never went anywhere…like every other location for the team.
More recently, the Royals have been reportedly talking to officials about a new ballpark that will fit into the downtown area. But when KCTV5 asked residents around downtown what they thought of this move, the answers were the same. No thank you!
When the Royals tried to garner some support for the sales tax vote last year, they paid a company, Jones Lang LaSalle, a Chicago-based real estate company, to write and release an economic impact report on a potential ballpark. But, it didn’t take long for problems to come out of this idea. The Royals paid Jones Lang LaSalle to write this report without caring or realizing that Jones Lang LaSalle had no experience with economic impact reports for ballparks or even sports venues. Even worse, the Royals didn’t just pay Jones Lang LaSalle but they also “worked on the projections”.
Is it any wonder why an actual economist looked over the Royals economic impact claims and found the entire report to be “not credible”, “nothing more than propaganda” and should not be taken seriously? Center Square wrote a story about this impact report and talked to sports economist J.C. Bradbury of Kennesaw State University in Georgia. When Bradbury was asked why sports teams continue to issue these economic impact reports that promise the world and yet never once come close to actually happening, he was very blunt with his response: “It’s why stadium subsidy supporters have to pay consultants to concoct these bogus numbers”.
This is what I picture Bradbury doing to the Royals:
By next month, I expect the Royals to have publicly admitted to liking 5 new potential ballpark locations.
