Best of KC 2024: Voters overwhelmingly reject naked cashgrab for downtown stadium
Illustration by Bob Unell
Earlier this month, we published The Pitch’s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can take a peek at the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some local people, places, and things that we thought clearly won 2024. We’ll be publishing these items online throughout November.
In April, residents of Jackson County asked billionaires to put their money where their mouth is, rather than the other way ‘round.
After more than a year of reporting from The Pitch and other area activists about backroom dealings around a proposed Royals stadium move, a thinly outlined plan to allocate funds for the next 40 years to John Sherman and co. was flatly rejected by nearly 60% of voters. The campaign to push this approval through was marred by constant missteps. Communication with area unions and organizers never materialized into the kind of community agreements that citizens of the metro demanded. Settling on a location was a shell game of pitting neighborhoods against each other, until a downtown stadium was revealed with no communication to the dozens of local businesses that would be impacted—much less the community itself.
Finally, a wildly expensive mailing/advertising/door-knocking campaign was rife with exaggerations, mistruths, and vague threats as to what would happen to the future of both the Royals and the Chiefs unless Jackson citizens agreed to a proposal with almost no real specifics, no oversight, and no consideration for how this would impact the people paying for a stadium to uproot the places where they live and work.
The massive pushback from voters was one of the most important, defining nights of our 2024. We often take joy (or at least entertainment) in how rarely this city can take the same perspective on anything. It’s part of what makes KC the proper blend of salty and spicy that defines how we tackle the world. To know we can all see through a transparent gamble to take advantage of our kin is a worthwhile rallying point, no matter how you cut it.
So we look to 2025, where this issue is far from over, as team ownership will undoubtedly pursue a competition between incentives in both states or revert to gesturing vaguely at leaving town all together. They’re hollow threats from hollow people, but at least next time around they’ll know they have to turn in their homework before they demand a gold star.
