KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Friday the Kansas City Royals and Jones LaSalle Long, a real estate firm the team hired, explained how the proposed Royals stadium in downtown Kansas City would impact the local economy.
The presentation said building the stadium and neighboring entertainment district will create 26,000 jobs earning $1.8 billion in salaries and generating $3.8 billion in overall economic impact.
LINK | Read the team's presentation
Gus Dossett of Jones LaSalle Long said when the stadium opens, it’ll create 5,400 jobs with employees earning $300 million dollars. Overall the ballpark would generate $880 million in impact that year.
Once the neighboring entertainment district with a hotel and other features fully opens, Dossett said the entire project will support 8,400 new jobs with a salary of $440 million. The overall economic impact would reach $1.2 billion.
The team made the predictions based on attracting between 2 and 3 million fans over the course of a season. The team had 1.3 million fans in 2023 when it finished with the second worst record in Major League Baseball. Brooks Sherman said the team had 2.6 million fans in 2016, the season after winning the World Series.
Last year, the Royals released economic impact numbers for two other sites it was considering for a new ballpark: the East Village and North Kansas City. The numbers presented Friday specific to the Crossroads site exceeded the predictions from August.
The Congressional Research Service published a report in January exploring how sports can drive the economy. It included research from previous reports that found “public funding for stadiums has minor economic impacts.”
It also highlights how promises of “new” spending created by the stadium is spending that would happen locally anyway, just not necessarily around a new stadium.
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