It's fifteen miles or twenty plus minutes with traffic, plus you then have to deal with figuring out where to eat, paying for parking, and all that shit. Suddenly, it's not worth the hassle if you really only want to catch 90 minutes of the game or so.

In Kansas City, people pop into a bar for a few drinks after work. In cities with downtown stadiums, they hit the Rockies game for a couple of drinks after work.

What about Arrowhead?

You don't pop into Arrowhead after work. Home football games happen 8 times a year, and they happen on Sundays. You can expect people to make a day out of going to Arrowhead because that makes up 2% of the year. Arrowhead is perfect right where it is.

Build up the area? Kansas City just did that and is subsidizing it to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. That area is downtown...where people actually work.

And then, the taxpayers ponied up hundreds of millions of dollars so that a few billionaires could make more money off of the stadiums...and instead of building a new stadium near that beautiful downtown entertainment district, the stadium was renovated by adding a couple of bars and a playground. Meanwhile, the billionaire owner of the Royals has shown absolutely zero willingness to make the financial commitment necessary for building a winner.

Now we're supposed to say, "Hey Mr. Glass. Dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into your stadium in the middle of nowhere wasn't enough. Now, we're going to dump another hundred million into building an entertainment district around your stadium. Of course, nobody works near there, so nobody is going to go there, but we're Kansas City. This is what we do. You've seen where we put the ****ing airport, right?"

I vote for downtown stadium, and I would like it to be open in 2025.

Seriously.

and tailgate...

I'm sure all 13 people who tailgate at Thursday evening Royals games are glad to have a parking lot the size of Andorra in which to throw washers.

No. You would need major arteries to get there you know like highways and such. That I-70 thing that runs across the entire country for some reason doesn't qualify.

For downtown stadium to be successful, you need:

1) Lots to do surrounding stadium (bars, restaurants, etc.) - check
2) Good mass-transit (bus, trolley, train) - nope
3) good product - getting there, but not yet


Take it from someone who's experienced both, downtown stadiums (when all 3 above are met) are kick-ass.

And with good mass-transit, parking problems are non-existent.

The padres played in the shithole that is Qualcomm.......moved downtown......it's a party.....plenty of things to do....plenty of places to eat/drink.

150 times better than Qualcomm (which would be the equivalent of KC's sports complex.....10-15 min from downtown........nothing close by. (though the trolley does stop at Qualcomm also)

I've been to the Arizona Cardinals and D-Backs facilities. We had to take a shuttle from the parking lot to the stadium for the Cardinals. We had to park a mile away for the D-Backs. It was stupid as ****. Granted at the Cards if you are a season ticket holder you get to park next to the stadium.

Usually when I hear this argument, its from some Johnson County resident who didn't pay a goddamn dime to renovate the stadium anyway.

Jackson County built it.
Jackson County renovated it.
It sits in the middle of Jackson County.
Where the people who PAID for the damn thing live.

I could care less if your drive from Olathe is inconvenient.

The only thing a JoCo will pay for is a gated community. And guess what? Most of you aren't welcome there, unless you're coming out to clean the house, cut the grass or clean the pool.

Oh, and one other thing.

The Sprint Center was built next to the P&L with the promise that we would get the NBA or NHL. Guess what? We got neither. Even if we did build a downtown baseball stadium, as long as the Glass Family own the team, we won't have a baseball team either. So instead of drawing 15,000 a night in August and September at the HST Sports complex, you'll be drawing 10,000 a night downtown. Plus Jackson County taxpayers are going to be hard pressed to ever build anything again for David Glass based on his cheap ass track record. So good luck passing a bond issue, because downtown is in KCMO, Jackson County.

Maybe Wyandotte County would build one out by Sporting's Park, but I really doubt that. They already have the TBones, and they occasionally win!

Enjoy paying out the ass for a stadium in Raytown so that a billionaire in Arkansas can get even wealthier, then.

.

....and they're 23rd in attendance.

ROFL