World Series parade and rally cost more than $350,000

Kansas City officials on Wednesday estimated the cost of the World Series celebration at about $350,000, with corporate sponsorships picking up about $300,000 of the tab.

The city will pay employee overtime and cleanup expenses, which were estimated at $50,000, including police, fire and public works crews.

Mayor Sly James said it was all well worth it for a splendid, family-friendly event that brought a crowd bigger than the entire population of Kansas City, Mo., to downtown.

“I just absolutely loved how the people of this city, hundreds of thousands, got together with no major incidents. That’s a great tribute to our class and to the people that live here,” James said Wednesday.

City spokesman Chris Hernandez said the city estimates the crowd for Tuesday’s parade and rally at close to 800,000, based on a crowd counting method commonly referred to as Jacobs’ method, using maps, grids and aerial photography. Others estimated the crowd at closer to 500,000.

Only three people were arrested for fights and other minor infractions. In addition, an unmarked patrol vehicle parked near Union Station was significantly damaged when fans stood on top of its roof and hood to get a better view of the celebration.

James said the peaceful day was a tribute to the Kansas City Police Department and its chief.

“Darryl Forté has a police department that he has instructed and gotten to believe that they’re part of the community and there’s different ways to handle situations,” James said.

Corporate sponsorships picked up the tab for the big-ticket hard costs of Tuesday’s parade and rally: rentals of the barricades, sound system, stage setup at Union Station, big screens and other items.

The city will pay overtime, but having the event on a Tuesday rather than during a weekend helped contain those costs because public works, water and parks employees were on their regular shifts, Hernandez said.

Here’s the event by the numbers:

▪ Crowd estimate: 800,000.

▪ Trash collected: 7 tons and counting.

▪ Emergency medical calls: 119, with 53 people taken to hospitals.

▪ Barricades: 26,012 feet.

▪ Confetti: 16 confetti cannons, shooting off 400 pounds of confetti.

Kansas City’s Metro bus system was particularly overwhelmed with enormous lines of people who opted to take buses into downtown rather than drive. Many people waited hours at seven gathering spots, and some never made it downtown because the 400 buses used during the day were overloaded.

By the end of Tuesday, the Area Transportation Authority calculated that it had transported about 200,000 people, compared with the average daily ridership of about 55,000.

The ATA does not yet know how much money it lost by providing all that free transportation, said spokeswoman Cindy Baker. Most free days cost about $20,000, but Tuesday was nothing like a normal free day.

“It’s going to take us a few days to pull everything together, all the resources that we used,” she said.

Police began planning for the revelry even before the Royals won the World Series.

“We knew they would have had to have a parade in 48 hours,” Forté said. “We were already set up and we had a written plan ready to go.”

Kansas City police had about 400 officers assigned to patrol the parade and the celebration. That number also included federal law enforcement, Jackson County sheriff’s deputies and troopers with the Missouri Highway Patrol.

It will take several more days to determine exactly how much overtime the events will cost the department. Forté declined to say if he would ask city officials to help cover that expense until after he meets with staff and reviews the final numbers. Some overtime occurred during the Royals’ run through the playoffs.

The team picked up the cost for off-duty officers assigned to guard the Royals and patrol Kauffman Stadium.

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 3:25 PM with the headline "World Series parade and rally cost more than $350,000."