KC’s riding high on Super Bowl, Bobby Witt. Will voters OK big bucks for stadiums? | Opinion
If Jackson County voters approve the 3/8-cent sales tax extension for new and refurbished stadiums April 2, this week will likely be the reason why.
The Chiefs, as all of America knows, are in the Super Bowl on Sunday. Good luck to them. The Royals ended a busy offseason by signing their young star, Bobby Witt Jr., to an 11-year contract worth nearly $290 million — easily the biggest contract in team history, and one of the biggest ever in baseball.
Oh — we learned Kansas City will host six international World Cup soccer matches in 2026.
These stories don’t directly affect the stadium issue. They don’t directly change the mathematics of the deal, or the state’s contribution, if any, or the lack of project details from the Chiefs or Royals, or the wisdom of building or rebuilding stadiums for pro sports franchises. They won’t lay a brick or pave a parking lot.
But the Chiefs’ Super Bowl and the Royals’ roster, and the soccer tournament, are exciting and fun. In this, they remind us sports are typically exempt from the real-world calculus voters apply to other decisions, such as taxes and spending for schools, or roads or police.
The Royals seem to understand this. The team celebrated the Witt contract on social media (“A commitment to our fans, our city, and our team,” the club said on X, once known as Twitter. They held a news conference with the young star, emphasizing their connection to the community.
No one could have missed the implied linkage of the deal with the April stadium vote.
At the same time, voters have yet to hear a sustained argument for downtown baseball. The Royals have said Kauffman Stadium is deteriorating, and apparently beyond repair, but they still may not understand why a $1 billion downtown stadium is the answer.
Every claim for a downtown stadium wobbles under scrutiny. Stadiums don’t draw outside private investment; if they did, the Truman Sports Complex would be clogged with restaurants and shops. And downtown Kansas City already is packed with places to eat and drink (which taxpayers are also subsidizing, by the way).
Attendance? Los Angeles led Major League Baseball in attendance last year, in a stadium older than Kauffman. The bottom 10 teams in MLB attendance, on the other hand, include Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington, the White Sox in Chicago and Detroit — all teams that have opened downtown or urban stadiums in recent years.
Atlanta was fifth in attendance last year. The Braves moved out of downtown and into the suburbs in 2017.
Across the parking lot, the Chiefs released a report claiming nearly $1 billion in “economic impact” from the franchise. The report sank like a stone, as nearly every similar study does: Virtually every serious economist discounts local impact claims for sports, or for any other business for that matter.
And voters are usually skeptical of such claims. In the early 1990s, Kansas City promised 10,000 jobs and millions of dollars of “impact” if voters would only approve a tax increase for an aircraft manufacturing plant (“You are the wings,” the pro-tax commercials said, hilariously.)
Voters said no. Handing public cash to private businesses can be a heavy lift.
Sports are often different, as the Chiefs and Royals surely know. Voters may see the April vote as a referendum on the teams, and Kansas City’s place in the national conversation, and not on the teams’ $2 billion ask. Signing Bobby Witt Jr., and playing in the Super Bowl, are perfect reflections of that strategy.
In 2019, mayoral candidate Quinton Lucas compared downtown baseball with buying a Maserati. The new car lot is open, and Jackson County voters are kicking the tires.
This story was originally published February 7, 2024 at 5:08 AM.