Sporting KC considering retail shop at stadium

Sporting Kansas City is looking to up its game over the coming year, but in this case, on the retail playing field.

The Major League Soccer club is considering a plan to build an approximately 5,000-square-foot retail store at Sporting Park that could open in time for the 2016 season. It would serve as the club’s first flagship merchandising store, said Robb Heineman, Sporting’s chief executive officer.

Heineman said one of the club’s goals is “to have a more permanent brand presence at the stadium.”

The free-standing building, as currently envisioned, would be constructed in the Sprint Plaza area, a high-traffic location for fans on the north side of the stadium complex in Kansas City, Kan.

Building it there — as opposed to inside the stadium — would allow the shop to be open year-round rather than just during games and other events.

While the team has been working for several weeks with architects on a design, Heineman said a final decision on whether to proceed with the project probably won’t come until 2015. Heineman also said the building could include a food and beverage operation and a box office.

“We haven’t even thought about how we’ll finance it,” he said.

Heineman said adding a store would address the lack of dedicated retail space at the approximately 18.500-seat stadium, which opened in 2011 and is considered one of the top venues in U.S. professional soccer. “When we built Sporting Park, the retail space was based off of some assumptions when we were the Kansas City Wizards,” Heineman said.

Since changing the team’s name and moving into the stadium, Sporting has had more on-field success, including a league championship in 2013. As a result, merchandising “has just exploded,” Heineman said.

Sporting ranks as No. 2 in the league in terms of gross merchandise sales, behind only the Seattle Sounders, which plays in a stadium that seats 40,000 for soccer.

To compensate for having only about 750 square feet of dedicated retail space at Sporting Park, the club has used kiosks, and even transformed shipping containers into pop-up stores that sell scarves, clothing and other Sporting merchandise.

“If we have more floor space we could expand our (merchandise) selection, Heineman said.

This holiday season, the club is planning another first — a temporary retail store at Sporting Park that will open on the Friday after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve. “This will give us a better sense of customer traffic patterns,” said John Moncke, Sporting’s vice president of merchandise.

The store, located in the Boulevard Members Club area, will operate Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

This story was originally published November 17, 2014 at 11:30 AM with the headline "Sporting KC considering retail shop at stadium."