The 2023 Kansas City Royals were abysmal.
The 106-loss team had the second worst record in Major League Baseball. Fan favorite Vinnie Pasquantino missed most of the season due to injury. Bobby Witt Jr. was in his second season in the league, and while good, he hadn’t blossomed into one of the best players in baseball.
Bad baseball aside, 1.3 million fans showed up for Royals games that season.
That 1.3 million number was near the bottom of the league for baseball attendance. Yet that many fans is an untouchable mark for a professional football team.
In 2023, the Dallas Cowboys led the NFL in regular season home attendance with 748,775 fans. Even the Chiefs, who won the Super Bowl that season, drew less than 640,000 people for nine regular season home games — less than half the hapless Royals.
Baseball teams play far more games and sell far more tickets. As a result, event frequency and attendance are factors lawmakers might consider as Missouri and Kansas ponder financing stadium plans for the Royals and Chiefs.
Both the Chiefs and Royals are pitting the two states against each other to get the most taxpayer dollars to fund new or renovated stadium projects. Neither state is giving teams major amounts of taxpayer dollars directly, but tying stadium debt to future economic activity like sales tax dollars in a stadium district. (Kansas lawmakers have pushed the deadline for a final decision to Jan. 1, 2026.)
Does differing attendance mean Kansas and Missouri should focus on the Royals because they bring in more people? Or does the possibility of hosting Super Bowls, concerts and other major events make the Chiefs more valuable?
Lawmakers versus economists
The Chiefs-versus-Royals debate has a different answer depending on whom you ask.
“I would think that the Royals would have an advantage there, just because of the sheer number of games,” said Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat.
Others think sold-out Chiefs games pack the stands too well to ignore.
“If you build a dome, you’re talking Super Bowls, Final Fours, major concerts, lots of development around it,” said Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, on sports radio 810 WHB.
Masterson said “most everybody … in the conversation” prefers the Chiefs.
Many economists couldn’t care less.
J.C. Bradbury, a professor of economics at Kennesaw State University, said it is a terrible idea for Kansas or Missouri to help fund the stadium in any way. Stadium development programs only move around economic activity, he said, and don’t create new growth. Kansas City locals are spending their money at a Chiefs or Royals game, but they would have otherwise spent it at a bar or other local business.
Kansas lawmakers have long said they want to keep the Chiefs and Royals in the area, and argue that’s why a stadium plan is critical. But Chiefs or Royals? Bradbury said it makes no difference.
“I can’t say this emphatically enough,” Bradbury said. “People keep making this mistake and I’m almost tired of talking about it, but there isn’t any extra economic benefit from baseball because more people are going to baseball games.”
NFL versus MLB attendance
The 106-loss 2023 Royals team sold more regular season tickets than the 2022 and 2023 Chiefs combined — even though those seasons ended with Super Bowl championships.
The Chiefs and Royals at their best, selling out stadiums and winning championships, likely wouldn’t even become the largest STAR bond projects in Kansas in terms of attendance.
The 2015 Royals won the World Series and set a single-season record for attendance with just over 2.7 million tickets sold. Phases one and two of the Wichita Riverwalk development had an estimated 2.6 million and 2.7 million visitors in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
The Wichita Riverwalk is paying off a $55.3 million bond. Kansas has offered to finance up to 70% of one or two multibillion-dollar stadium projects.
Masterson is confident a Chiefs or Royals stadium can pay for itself with the proper stadium district. He isn’t worried that a Royals stadium draws more people and may cost less to build.
Kansas lawmakers amended the Sales Tax and Revenue Bond, or STAR bond, program to try and lure a professional sports team to Kansas. That means sales taxes generated in a stadium district goes to pay off stadium debt. The more fans who show up and spend money, the quicker the debt is paid down.
These stadium districts wouldn’t just host games. The newly constructed Texas Rangers stadium is in a sports district with the Cowboys that has regular events and keeps the area busy.
“(We said) put the Cowboys to work for Arlington,” Brian Mayes, a lead political strategist in Texas, told The Beacon. “It was the economic generator, and the additional tax revenue that was made by the Cowboys helped the city pay for roads and parks and police.”
Boosters say whichever state lands the Chiefs also could be in line for certain mega events, like the Super Bowl, major concerts or Final Four basketball games. One estimate said Super Bowl LVIII brought $1 billion in economic impact to Las Vegas and visitors spent on average $2,660.
Bradbury isn’t as convinced about the Super Bowl’s impact.
It does bring more out-of-state visitors, unlike a regular season game. But it can also scare away conferences or other events planning to stop by, he said, and the week after a Super Bowl leaves town is slower.
Bradbury said major events don’t come around that often. Taylor Swift or Beyonce could sell out a domed NFL stadium, but artists that popular stop through Kansas City only a few times a year.
Nathaniel Birkhead, an associate professor of political science at Kansas State University, said choosing between the Chiefs and Royals shouldn’t be a financial decision because the finances aren’t great. He said if lawmakers had to choose, they should choose based on which team is more important to constituents and the fabric of the community.
“Frankly, if I were to give advice,” Birkhead said, “I would give advice to not actually pay anything for the stadiums.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
