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In the first 20 years of the franchise history, they never finished lower than 5th in the AL West. 15 of the 20 years either 1st or 2nd in the division. Royals just hit their decline in probably the worst time possible. Brett era had just gotten over, they had a really good team in 1994 but then strike hit. Strike really did paralyze baseball pretty good. NFL took off stronger then (Chiefs were in the last year of Joe Montana era) and Jordan was the NBA. Baseball started to come back with the McGwire and Sosa home run chase and Ripken's streak but the Royals kept fumbling away. Traded away their 3 superstars and got back nothing really. Then the 4 out of 5 100 loss seasons just bottomed out. All of this combined with the Cardinals rise to their winning streak. That just ate away with most of outstate Missouri fan base. Not to mention Iowa, parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas etc. Franchise bottomed out for 17 years from the strike until 2013.
Football is basically king across all of America anyways. Hell even in St. Louis, the Rams still drew decent and get good TV ratings as well. It's just the NFL beast.
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