KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When it comes to considering the gridlocked state of the Royals’ declared intention to abandon Kauffman Stadium for a new ballpark district, either in the East Village or North Kansas City, it seems most prudent to try to be skeptical without being cynical.
Or as “Ted Lasso” revived in a classic quote: “Be curious, not judgmental.”
Because we’re dealing here with an elaborate process, not a product, as we await any clarity that might come with such revelations as the announcement of a site, specifics of how much the true public bill will be and the particulars of how the surroundings will make life in Kansas City better.
Toward that end, it’s also worth keeping one particular point in mind through all the back and forth and posturing and apparent stalemates and talking past each other and semantics.
“All (of) this is a negotiation,” Royals chairman and CEO John Sherman said during a nearly hourlong news conference on Thursday morning.
To be clear, Sherman was speaking specifically to a question about the current Truman Sports Complex lease the Royals and Chiefs share in through 2030.
But the words resonated as a lens on the broader state of this momentous endeavor, which is projected by the Royals to include an estimated cost of $2 billion — more than $1 billion of which Sherman and the Royals have repeatedly said will come through private investment.
Virtually every aspect of this vagueness reflects that grinding process toward trying to find literal and figurative common ground.
The trouble for the Royals is that attached ambiguity is working against them in the theater of public opinion — at least among many people around town I’ve spoken with, and in influential places, as recently reported by The Kansas City Star’s Kevin Hardy and Sam McDowell.
Now, in the grand scheme of this tale, it’s important to note that no one is putting it to a vote right now — a vote that for the Jackson County site would seek an extension of the existing 3/8th-cent sales tax, and what Sherman said would be “a similar structure” for the North Kansas City site in Clay County.
It increasingly appears that won’t happen until next spring at the earliest.
It also should be understood that the Royals surely will generate more support when they announce the site, as they’ve suggested they will by the end of summer. Presumably, that also will come with more details about ways it could serve the community.
While how they get there from here remains to be seen, that plan is what will be voted on — not this limbo in which it’s unknown what further financial assurances the Royals will seek from the city, state and county of choice.
Still, this is where we are now. And even if you’re someone like me, whose predisposition is to be intrigued by such a project understood to be for a greater good, the ongoing absence of crucial details makes it so only someone with blind faith can say they back it at this stage.
While certain elements have been spackled in over the last few months, including reducing the location possibilities down to two prospective sites, I don’t feel much different now than I did last December, after the Royals’ first stop in a “listening tour”:
How do you advocate one way or another without knowing what, exactly, it is … or even where it would be?
So no matter how much of this is understood to be about the art of compromise and a work in progress — or in suspended animation, as the case may be — the burden of proof remains on the Royals.
They’re the ones trying to sell an idea, after all. One that is all the more a slog during this appalling season: The team was 23-58 after a 4-3 win over Cleveland on Thursday at Kauffman Stadium.
If something’s got to give to break up the logjam, it sure appears to be on the Royals more than any other party. Most to the point, they still need to more substantially articulate the case as to why the move would be a community-revitalizing necessity rather than the luxury some perceive it to be.
That includes the very notion of going to North Kansas City.
For all the potential appeal and would-be benefits there, it’s in Clay County and not, in fact, part of downtown Kansas City — the best interests of which the ambitious project initially was touted to be in.
Sherman on Thursday called that “very creative” prospect “another way to connect” to downtown, including the possibility of “developing the other side of the riverfront.”
But that still seems quite in a different spirit than how this was unfurled. Not to mention something that would require an entirely different tier of lease negotiation and alternate tax base.
Lest I sound “anti-” this, I’m not. I get that it’s infinitely more complicated than it might appear, and, again, that there’s nothing to vote on now.
And that it’s all a negotiation.
For that matter, I consider Sherman to be not just a shrewd entrepreneur but someone who is remarkably philanthropic and civic-minded. And he’s right when he says Kauffman Stadium is gorgeous but is aging and lacking in modern amenities — elements that at least in theory through luxuries in a new stadium could increase revenues to help make the club more competitive.
“This is not a business where you distribute cash to the investors,” he said when I asked him how the new stadium could help the team improve. “This is a business where you take your excess cash flow and you put it back on the field, and you find ways to compete and do something special for the market here.”
Yes, it’s hard from here and now to see what that looks like then.
Or what the path is to get there.
Because it’s still all a negotiation — one we hope takes sufficient enough shape in the months to come that we can embrace it.
