Will Kansas City Become a Pawn in the Arena Chess Match?

A recent Kansas City Star has an article on the lack of a potential NBA tenant for Kansas City's new Sprint Center.

While the grassroots organization NHL21 keeps the pulse alive for hockey, and AEG, which manages the Sprint Center, will bring an NHL exhibition game to the arena in September, there doesn’t seem to be much buzz in Kansas City regarding an NBA franchise.

After all, television ratings for early-round NBA playoff games were lower than two Royals rainouts. AEG, which is charged with bringing pro sports to Kansas City, flirted with two NHL franchises last year but has not made any public overtures to any NBA clubs other than Seattle, when SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett said he might consider Kansas City as an alternative to Oklahoma City.

Of course, Kansas City was once an NBA market, when the Kings arrived in 1972 from Cincinnati and stayed until moving to Sacramento in 1985. But that was a very different NBA.

The article wonders whether Kansas City is just a big college town.  The University of Kansas, the birthplace of basketball and home of the, ugh, National Champion Jayhawks is a stone's throw down Highway 10.  Mizzou is located 120 miles to the east and Kansas State is located 90 miles to the west.  All three schools have large alumni bases in Kansas city.  And local resident Kevin Harlan, who announces NBA games for TNT and college basketball games for the NCAA, seems to think that fans of the different levels don't cross over much. 

I don't know of research that looks at whether there is cross-over between NBA and the NCAA in terms of fans, but there is some research suggesting that fans cross-over in cities such as Chicago and New York, areas with local competition in baseball (here and my working paper here).  But those cities have sufficient population to support two teams, even from the point of view of the closed league of MLB. 

Will Kansas City's experience resemble Tampa's experience (by Tim Nickens via Skip) in trying to lure a MLB franchise after Tropicana Field was built?  Tropicana was opened in 1986 with the purpose of drawing a MLB team to the area and to spruce up a dilapidated area.  It took 12 years to draw a team and based on the picture in the Nickens' article, development hasn't come.

Another thing to note is that once you build an arena with the purpose of drawing a major sports team, you open yourself up to becoming a bargaining chip.  The Chicago White Sox flirted with Tampa after Tropicana was built, playing politicians in the two regions off of one-another like ch(u)amps, resulting in full public funding from the state of Illinois to keep the Sox on the south side.  How's that for a positive externality? 

Finally, in 1998, Tampa got its baseball club, and 10 years later they are actually competitive, even though fans haven't warmed up yet.

The Sprint Center was built to replace the old Kemper Arena and to revitalize downtown Kansas City.  According to the article it has been a smashing success.  But it's only been open since October of 2007, so let's wait to see what things are like after the novelty wears off.  And let's see what happens on the pro sports front.  Now that they've built it, will and NBA team (or an NHL team) come?

 

Comments

[Zach]

I've lived in the suburbs of Kansas City almost all my life. Here are my observations:

1) When it comes to pro sports, Kansas City is a fair-weather city. The Royals haven't been good in 15 years, and their attendance reflects this. The Chiefs were terrible in the late 80's, and their attendance reflected this. The Chiefs really struggled in '07 to maintain their consecutive home game sellout streak that goes back into the 90's.

2) Most Kansas Citians (myself included) couldn't care less about the NBA. College basketball is king here. I'm surprised that KC's own paper has to wonder about the "ifs" here.

3) If you need something screwed up, overhyped, overpriced, or past-due, let the city of Kansas City, Missouri handle it. KC has tried lots of things to "revitalize" its downtown, and most of us suburbanites still go downtown only if we absolutely have to.

[Phil]

Thanks for the comment. I'm a frequent visitor to KC, and I travel *through* the the downtown area on almost every trip. But I've only traveled specifically *to* downtown KC twice in my life, and both times the Fed was my destination. I usually spend my time on the Plaza, at Crown Center, or in the Kansas burbs visiting friends and family.