Fans of losing Big 12 teams need to choose: Flee or stick around KC?

Seven hundred miles from home and your team was mopped off the court in its first matchup at the Big 12 Tournament.

Do you stay?

“Why wouldn’t we stay?” asked Allison Dunn, a fan of the bottom-seeded Texas Tech Red Raiders basketball squad. The team returned to Lubbock, Texas, after losing Round 1 on Wednesday. But Allison and husband David Dunn were back Thursday at the Sprint Center and glad to stick around another three days in a city where they’ve never been.

It helps the Dunns and the Kansas City tourist trade that they won the Fearless Fans Giveaway at their Texas bank for round-trip airfare and four nights of lodging.

So they’ll take in some remaining games, shop the Country Club Plaza, maybe eat barbecue (as the cabbie advised) and contribute to the tourney’s $9 million in area economic impact.

“That’s what we love to hear,” said Derek Klaus of Visit KC, the city’s tourism bureau.

Though they love to hear it, local officials lack data on how often visitors stay through the week after their teams fall early in the tournament.

Most fans reserve rooms for the duration, Klaus said, but lodging becomes a flurry of musical chairs as hotels release the unlucky fans and clear the way for incoming rooters of teams that advance.

Kansas State fans appeared far fewer in number at the Sprint Center on Thursday, the day after their Wildcats folded. Still, K-State loyalist Kassie Ingram — a Kansas City resident — intended to keep using her tournament tickets through Saturday’s championship game.

“Of course, I only live 15 minutes away,” she said. “I would say from working 51/2 years at Johnny’s Tavern (across from the Sprint Center) that fans from all over do usually stay the whole tournament. Not all of them, but I’d say most,” including the perennial plethora of those wearing Iowa State colors.

With Ingram living here, the monetary boost to the region from her doesn’t much exceed the price of her tickets, food and drink in the arena — and the $20 miniature basketball she has bought for her son at every Big 12 tourney that the 4-year-old has attended.

What Kansas City merchants prefer are visitors such as Cindy and Samantha Matthis, mother and adult daughter. They drove eight hours from Kentucky on Thursday, booked nights at the Downtown Marriott and were purchasing souvenir T-shirts within hours of arriving.

Then they saw their friends on the Texas Tech coaching staff lose to the Texas Longhorns. The Matthises checked out of their hotel Thursday and headed home, their room likely to be filled by arriving fans from Baylor and other winning teams.

“We gave your city a little of our money overnight,” said Cindy Matthis.

Klaus of Visit KC said the one-and-doners are part of the business of hosting college tournaments. Fans who travel long distances may be less apt than others to bolt after a loss, however, if they booked cheaper flights in advance. They’re also more inclined to spend than are fans from around here.

For seven buddies who cheer on the West Virginia Mountaineers, their first-ever trip to Kansas City is a chance to catch up with each other as they do every few years. From Section 105 on Thursday they watched their alma mater lose to Baylor.

They’re staying nonetheless. “It’s a reunion for us, win or lose,” said Mark Brugnoli. He flew in early this week and will leave with the rest of his group Sunday for homes in West Virginia, Florida and Maryland.

“The basketball is just too good in this conference” for them to take off before a champ is crowned, said dentist John Starcher of the Section 105 bunch, most of whom graduated from West Virginia in the late 1970s.

Their first impressions of Kansas City could have been better. Shortly after landing here, the guys gathered downtown and, hmm, found two spent bullet casings outside a restaurant.

“Kansas City has smaller bullets than West Virginia,” joked Steven Ferguson, the CPA of the group. “The only bullets you’ll find on the ground there are ones used to shoot deer.”

All in all, though, Kansas City was proving to be a decent place to party and watch basketball for four days. “We’re going to have a good Kansas City steak dinner” in the Power and Light District, Ferguson said.

And by staying through the tourney, they’ll avoid a technicality in city law that requires visitors reselling their Big 12 tickets on the street to obtain a $62 vendor’s license or potentially be fined if caught by police.

The licensing office west of City Hall was quiet Thursday afternoon.

Not that all unlucky fans were holding onto their tickets. They just weren’t spending $62 to get out of town.

This story was originally published March 12, 2015 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Fans of losing Big 12 teams need to choose: Flee or stick around KC?."