The Cost of the Game

The gates at Kauffman Stadium swing open in April. If the Royals' front office has chosen wisely during the off-season, young power hitters will have ample support to hoist the team into the upper echelon of the American League Central Division. Meanwhile, winning team or no, with Jumbotron replays and "take me out to the ball game" sing-alongs, "The K" is a good place to kick back in the summer sun and forget about cares and troubles.

But taxpayers who help pay for the fresh-cut grass, immaculately groomed infield dirt, sparkling-white bases, and the fountains just beyond the outfield wall may have to make a $150 million choice when it comes to the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex, where Kauffman Stadium stands. Such a hefty investment will increase taxpayers' yearly $14 million stake in the complex -- not to mention Jackson County residents' initial $56 million investment when the stadiums were built in the 1970s. If the governors of Kansas and Missouri sign legislation introduced by Kansas state Sen. Dick Bond of Overland Park and Missouri state Sen. Harry Wiggins of Kansas City, metropolitan area residents will debate, and then vote, on whether it's worth paying millions of dollars in sales tax money -- the argument will likely be -- to keep the majors here by funding stadium improvements and, with a nod to Kansas taxpayers, possibly funnel bistate revenues into the construction of sports facilities in Johnson and Wyandotte counties.

Stadium improvements, Chiefs and Royals officials say, will help the teams generate more money. Feeding the bottom line will entice the teams to stay in Kansas City. Neither Chiefs Chairman Jack Steadman nor Royals Senior Vice President of Business Operations and Administration Art Chaudry says his team will leave Kansas City for a bigger, better home in the near future. But both team officials talk about either getting the public to build new stadiums or having to consider moving after their leases expire in 2015.

Most civic and elected leaders in the metro believe the major league sports teams are gargantuan economic engines. Many sports fans and residents also recognize that the presence of major league sports teams helps determine a city's identity. Business leaders and team officials are steering the focus there. But Andy Zimbalist, a Smith College economics professor and sports journalist believes funding sports teams through publicly funded stadiums is a break-even proposition at best but more often is an economic drain for an area.

From a hotel room in California, where he is on a break from speaking to a civic group, Zimbalist says that little comes from public investment in sports stadiums and sports teams. Money that goes into a sports team, he says, leaves the community in the form of players' salaries -- because most do not live in the cities in which they play. The money also leaves in the form of profits paid to owners, who have significant investments outside their teams' communities. Better, Zimbalist says, "not to have major league sports teams and have entertainment dollars go to more homegrown entertainment, retail, and restaurant business.

"The fact is that there is no economic return on that investment (in major league sports). With the Truman Sports Complex location, you don't get spin-off business in the downtown area that could be argued to be a benefit. This is primarily an investment that will make (Royals prospective owner) David Glass' deep pockets deeper and (Chiefs owner) Lamar Hunt's deep pockets deeper."

Glass has an estimated net worth of $323 million, according to a Nov. 28, 1999, Kansas City Star article. Sports Illustrated reported Sept. 13, 1993, that Hunt's net worth was more than $150 million. According to a Jan. 27, 1999, article in The Washington Post, NFL owners like to keep team ownership with people worth in excess of $300 million (excluding the assets of the team they own).

The numbers
John Bondon sits in a small, oddly shaped office off the bar at the Italian Gardens restaurant downtown, his family's business for the past 75 years. Bondon is a long-standing member of the Jackson County, Mo., Sports Authority (JCSA) and an avid sports fan. His desk is an organized riot of paper and receipts. Open before him is a financial report for the restaurant. He fishes a cigar from a box in a file cabinet next to him and lights it, looking satisfied. He turns introspective and places his fingertips gently on the desk. He is considering the importance of major league sports in Kansas City.

"There are so many benefits," he says finally, his eyes brightening beneath his leonine mane. "Not merely the economic benefit the teams bring to Kansas City, but the tourism and the sense of pride. I can't imagine the city without the Chiefs or the Royals.

"The nature of major league sports today is that cities build facilities that the teams use. What they do for the town should interest even those who never see a major league game at the stadiums, people who aren't sports fans, because they bring so much pride to our town.

Bondon says that a bistate sales tax is a good mechanism for funding the kinds of improvements that the teams say they need to stay in Kansas City. "We were lucky to build the kinds of facilities we did in the early 1970s," he says. "They are stadiums that can be kept up and updated without having to lay out the $500 million to $800 million to re-create them. Many cities have built or are building those new stadiums, creating competition for Kansas City. Fortunately, we have teams here who are committed to the community."