Kansas City must be clear-eyed about spending taxpayer money to build stadiums for billionaires

Yahoo

25-04-2025

A rendering of the Royals proposed downtown ballpark (image submitted).
Should a city's love of beloved sports franchises outweigh their financial considerations?
Long time Missouri sports reporter, Vahe Gregorian, wrote a moving and nostalgic piece in The Kansas City Star about the Royals, their cherished place in our collective identity, and their desire to build a baseball park downtown.
The emotional pull is undeniable. As a transplant to Kansas City, I marveled in 2015 at the pictures and stories on social media of friends and neighbors who attended the Royals 1985 World Series with their parents then doing the same with their own children. Even as I write this, it remains a powerful example of how professional sports can bring a community together.
Yet there are plenty of Kansas Citians who are just as emotionally moved to protect Kauffman Stadium itself, the place of both the team's Series wins. The K is often rated highly among MLB parks, which doesn't include the strong affinity Royals fans have for Ewing Kauffman himself. The park itself holds emotional and cultural value.
But the effort to use taxpayer money to build a downtown park is not a romance novel, it is a business proposal. It ought to be understood as such.
Royals owner John Sherman certainly understands it as a business deal. In a recent radio interview, Sherman said the team needs a newer building, a modern building, because the K was, 'not competitive.' What does that mean? According to, 'The Business of Sports,' edited by Scott Rosner and Kenneth Shropshire, 'Much of the reason why existing stadiums are considered 'obsolete' is because they lack enough high-priced corporate seating,' such as luxury boxes and club seats which businesses may purchase and claim as tax deductions.
Nothing romantic there.
In turn, proponents of a downtown stadium offer smoke-and-mirrors arguments about all the economic benefits of a downtown stadium. At best, moving the park downtown changes spending—it does not create new spending. Where fans once may have visited liquor and grocery stores on their way to the K, they would now spend those same dollars at the new park and adjacent restaurants and bars.
That's not new money for the city or county. Quite the opposite, because current spending goes to places whose sales, income and property taxes support vital public services. But the subsidy regime for a new park would mean taxes collected at or around the new park would be returned to the developer for decades.
Gregorian cites the resuscitation of downtown by the Power & Light District as an example of economic success. It is anything but. The city did not create new economic activity, it merely redirected it from elsewhere, and in doing so, forwent millions in tax revenue. If downtown is considered a success, why are we still discussing new subsidies there 20 years later? When do taxpayers get to claim success and move on?
As for the April 2024 campaign, Gregorian quotes Royals owner John Sherman lamenting that the team did not have enough time to put together a sound proposal for the East Crossroads location. Recall, however, that Jackson County Executive Frank White vetoed putting the vote on the April 2 ballot and was initially supported by county legislators. But an ad campaign by the Chiefs and Royals pressured legislators to override White, which they did. If Sherman regrets the short campaign, he has only himself to blame.
Perhaps most unsettling is Gregorian's mention that Sherman has been a substantial philanthropist for city causes. His generosity is welcome and laudable. It is a credit to Sherman himself. Yet the message seems to be, as it has for other wealthy Kansas Citians seeking public subsidies, that taxpayers somehow owe them.
That is not charity; it is quid pro quo.
The Royals are culturally important to Kansas City. And we love our teams. But Kansas Citians must be clear-eyed about what is being asked of them: billions of dollars to move a park six miles so already-wealthy business owners can earn even more.
There is nothing romantic or nostalgic about that.