The Truman Show
In the late 1960s, the vanguard of sports imagination and pure audacity nested brightly for a time in the unlikeliest of places — Kansas City, Missouri. Here, civic leaders were ebullient, animated and full-throated in their zeal for depicting their so-call City of Fountains as the new epicenter for sport synergy not only in the Midwest but coast-to-coast. They weren’t wrong. In unveiling KC-Jackson County’s unflinching plans for a symbiotic sports emporium named the Truman Sports Complex, never before had side-by-side single-use sports stadiums been envisioned so completely, richly and grandly to house would-be MLB and NFL tenants. The Athletics were — very — controversially on their way to Oakland (making way for the expansionary Royals) and the Dallas Texans were barnstorming their way to town (to be renamed the Chiefs), so it was only fitting that state-of-the-art palaces be erected to showcase the City of Fountains as a Fountain of Youth and sports prowess. County residents overwhelming voted YES 78.9% to 21.1% to tax themselves to the tune of $102M to cover the cost of civic leaders’ starry vision. The Truman Complex would go on foment a sports powerhouse in the ensuing decades. While the Royals and Chiefs have constructed lasting legacies, their respective stadiums watch nervously as their progeny outgrow a 60-year old vision. They’re not wrong. Just last week, county taxpayers rejected (by a resounding 16% margin) a measure that would have extended the existing 3/8th-cent Truman sales tax through 2064, erasing $2 in funds for a new Royals stadium downtown and major renovations anew at Arrowhead. The steady-state Truman tax is currently set to expire in 2031, at which point the Royals and Chiefs are free to leave. With the brutal referendum results, Ownership is seriously mulling a KC exit rendering the City of Fountains today, paradoxically, a City of Goodbye and Good Riddance.
In 1967 Kansas City, the sky was the limit. A burgeoning population thriving off of blossoming government (IRS, National Nuclear Security Administration, Federal Reserve Bank), educational institution (University of Kansas) and private sector (Honeywell, Sanofi-Aventis, Great Plains Energy, Hostess) employment rosters made for a dynamic landlocked metropolis having quintupled in size between 1940 and 1970. And with great growth came great cultural promise, sports among them. News of the sparkling Royals displacing the lackluster Athletics and the impending arrival of the NFL ignited an all-hands race to unfurl the rubiest of red carpets; the finest in all the lands, 100% publicly financed. It was a no-nonsense, no-brainer for team ownership. That ruby red carpet presented in the visionary, ambitious Truman Sports Complex. Nestled at the busy and heavily-traveled intersection of Interstates 70 and 435, the complex rose just on the fringe of downtown and featured twin gargantuan stadiums, each ornamented in contemporary bespoke design. The complex was blessed with a staggering 40,000 parking spaces, more than enough for the football and baseball stadiums outfitted with seating for 70,000 and 47,000 fans respectively. Innovatively, the stadiums were to share a massive, arched 150 yard long rolling roof that was to reverse-trundle between the two, sheltering players and attendees from the sometimes frenetic Midwest weather. The engineering complexity and sheer cost estimates of the mobile roof quickly relegated the contraption to the trash bin. In its place a tranquil connecting — and much cheaper — courtyard shaded by the majesty of 49 American elm trees erupted (displaced just prior to opening day to make way for yet more parking).
The $102M that taxpayers spent in 1967 was arguably money well-spent, depending on which side of the public financing quagmire you are a proponent of. Two shining temples on a proverbial hill, the Truman Sports Complex was born of a time where cities clamored to erect lavish homes for professional sports team in the hopes of drawing ever more population density and resulting tax windfalls. That 1967 mentality has aged about as well as the facilities it financed. As all team owners are want to do, infrastructure envy set in as the era of the mega-stadium building boom arrived in the early 2000s. The owners of the Royals and Chiefs were not immune and looked on at their anachronistic stadiums as uncompetitive and hideously bereft of revenue-generating opportunities (think suites and VIP clubs and seats). And so, the owners went begging hat-in-hand for stadium improvements to be fully financed by the Jackson County taxpayer; not a cent coming from their private ledgers. The argued that the civic engine and micro-economy they collectively empowered more than offset the “meager” renovation budget proposed. Further, the real or not-so-real prospect of leaving Kansas City was powerfully and frequently wielded as a cudgel to force a declarative exclamation point at the end of any and every conversation. For a time the tactic worked. Until it didn’t.
For the average Jackson County resident, tax exhaustion flourished in aftermath of the dot com bust. An initial bite at the sales tax apple ended in abject humiliation in 2004 when a disastrous $1.2B joint Missouri-Kansas ballot measure went down in flames at the ballot box. The proposal would have provided $600M for Truman renovations (including another go at that shared reverse-trundle roof contraption) and $600M — headscratchingly — for the arts; all funded by a 25 cent sales tax applied to five close-in counties spilling across state lines. Again, without any owner participation. Team owners bristled at the results and threatened to leave town pointing to the then-current agreement’s exit offramp in 2007. Power in uniformity and unveiled threat worked. A second attempt was made in 2006, this time for Jackson County residents alone. Here is where the 3/8th-cent Truman sales tax was born. The measure passed 53% YES, indicating rapidly deteriorating public interest in funding white elephant rehabilitation efforts. The Truman sales tax, set in place for 25 years, raised $425M for renovations, not including an additional $25M from the Royals and $75M from the Chiefs. The Royals’ Kauffman Stadium received new restaurants and patios, state-of-the art scoreboards and a new outfield pavilion section. Arrowhead added 19 luxury suites, widened concourses, a club lounge, a new top-of-stadium two level deck with cabaret suite seats, shiny new Jumbotrons and more. In exchange, both teams signed lease extensions with the County through 2031.
Last year, the teams began shedding crocodile tears once more. They looked around at their now 60 year old facilities and grimaced at how even their somewhat recent renovations have failed to keep pace with supposed fan expectations. And again, right on queue, came the old hat-in-hand trick. It worked before so why wouldn’t it again, or so the thinking went. County leaders went along with the bit and dreamt big once more. They cooked up an unprecedented $2B referendum that would extend the 3/8th-cent Truman sales tax through 2064. All that money would fund a brand new Royals stadium in downtown Kansas City (displacing the popular, artsy Crossroads neighborhood) and yet another significant overhaul of Arrowhead at the Truman Sports Complex. The teams put up $3M in a get-out-the-vote campaign for the April 2024 referendum. Concurrently, the Kansas City Star and local new stations began poking under the covers of the ballot measure and found opaque provisions for any owner contributions, if at all. Further, downtown residents were apoplectic at the arrogance of professional sports conveniently inserting itself into civic life at the real cost of uprooted businesses, jobs, close-knit communities and homes. By this time in late Winter, the fury had reached a fever pitch. Polling for the measure was not looking good but the teams and County leaders remained hopeful that they’d prevail in the end with an off-cycle vote likely depressing voter turnout. The bet fell through the floor; NO garnered 58.1% of the vote to the 42.9% who voted YES. All the negative publicity and the virtues of an off-cycle referendum vote worked to drive animated taxpayers fed up with greed to the polls. A devastating defeat that has the Royals and Chiefs still reeling.
So as it stands, the current 3/8th-cent Truman sales tax will expire in 2031 at which point both teams are free to entertain offers out of town; a tactic each invoked this week as news of the stunning loss settled in upon the City of Fountains. Gone for now are prospects for the new downtown KC Crossroads Royals stadium and contemporary LED ribbon boards at Arrowhead. The Chiefs famously clinched their fourth Super Bowl championship this past February while the Royals are currently second in the AL Central. Their owners have become accustomed to on-and-off-field success and aren’t used to being told NO. Last week, they were told NO 78,352 times. Just a devastating outcome for what had become a half-century old gravy train. Well, the teams had a good run and look to the future with their familiar hat-in-hand trick, but this time to dismissive cold shoulders and hand-in-pocket shrugs. The end of the taxpayer-financed professional stadiums has officially arrived in the City of Fountains. Whether the Royals and Chiefs actually end up pulling up stakes in seven years remains to be seen. But in the meantime, this episode in Kansas City powerfully demonstrates that noisy, intimidating bluster can always be shouted down in the intimacy of the time-worn ballot box. Or as the Chiefs would term it, An ugly pick six.
NO pick sixes in March Madness, which wrapped up quietly this past Monday with UConn earning a back-to-back Championship crown despite Purdue and their determined protestations. This, after closest-thing-to-Cinderella-this-go-round in NC State flailed alongside Alabama just two days prior. Well done to the Huskies, though, we all know the excitement for 2024 resided in NCAAW where South Carolina extinguished the Caitlin Clark fairy tale so capably Sunday night. The record ratings tournament-long heralds a new era where the ladies have forcefully reclaimed their stage and rightfully so.
