With every snap, kick, swing of the bat and tip-off, the fortunes of college and professional sporting teams impact communities and unite fan bases, while simultaneously driving business, commercial real estate and economic growth.
Last week, CREW KC held a virtual discussion with local sporting leaders Chioma Atanmo, manager, community programs, Sporting Kansas City; Katherine Fox, director, KC2026 FIFA World Cup Bid; Lynn Parman, COO, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA); Sarah Tourville, chief revenue & innovation officer, Kansas City Royals; and moderator Carrie Rezac, AIA, LEED AP, principal/project manager, Populous; to discuss the impact sports has made on Kansas City.
Fox, who is employed by the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission & Foundation, said the Commission’s mission is to make Kansas City better through sports. She said when bidding on a property, the Commission takes into consideration the economic impact on Kansas City.
Fox said Kansas City hosts more collegiate basketball games in the month of March than anywhere else in the country, including the Big 12 Conference basketball championship and the NAIA men’s basketball championship. These tournaments have a significant positive economic impact for Kansas City.
The NAIA, headquartered in Kansas City, serves as the governing body of small collegiate athletics departments with a total of 77,000 student-athletes.
Parman said the NAIA is an association of firsts in collegiate athletics. It was the first collegiate athletics organization to welcome historically black institutions into membership, the first to have a cheer and dance national championship and the first, in partnership with the National Football League (NFL), to support women’s flag football. The NAIA also focuses on building the character of its student-athletes and coaches through its Champions of Character program.
The impact of the NAIA through the development of its athletes and cutting edge programs has a “halo effect” on Kansas City and its sports cluster, said Parman.
Children’s Mercy Park, Sporting Kansas City’s home stadium, was completed ten years ago. The $200 million facility is regarded as one of the best stadiums in Major League Soccer (MLS).
“People don’t imagine soccer in the Midwest being a destination and a hub,” Atanmo said.
Compass Minerals National Performance Center, a $75 million facility featuring high end technology, serves as a training home for Sporting Kansas City and also houses the U.S. Soccer National Coaching Education Center, providing an opportunity for coaches from all over the country to take training courses at the facility.
Sporting Kansas City also manages the youth soccer facilities at Swope Soccer Village, where it runs an academy program for youths from ages 10 to 19. And, it currently is working on a $36 million multi-sport complex in the Northland which will feature a power soccer court where kids in wheelchairs can play outside.
The power soccer court is an expansion of the Victory Project, a partnership between Sporting Kansas City and Hallmark which honors children undergoing cancer treatment or in remission or having special needs.
With soccer being the world’s sport, Kansas City is vying to be a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the largest single sport event in the world. A decision by FIFA is expected by the end of June, said Fox.
“The interesting thing is that we will absolutely be a World Cup city, whether that's hosting matches or being a site for team based camps is a little bit TBD. But we will be in that mix. So the community will benefit in some way from that event,” said Fox.
The World Cup will be hosted across three countries—Canada, Mexico and the United States. Fox said FIFA will be selecting 16 cities across those three countries, and, if selected, Kansas City can expect to host between five and seven matches at the host venue, Arrowhead Stadium, as well as a FIFA fan fest for the duration of the event.
As part of the bid process, the bid team identified several locations that could serve as training sites or base camps for teams, six on the Missouri side and four on the Kansas side.
“There’s no greater opportunity to showcase Kansas City and the Midwest region on an international stage. We would be hosting tens of thousands of international visitors and… from a television broadcast perspective, we'll probably get exposure that we would never be able to afford otherwise,” Fox said.
During baseball season, the Kansas City Royals host more than 37,000 fans for 81 nights of the year, connecting local fans on a regional and national level and then serving as a platform to connect businesses, said Tourville. However, the impact of the team extends well beyond its activities on the diamond.
“Our primary focus is to utilize the Royals’ platform in a social and civic manner to elevate those in need,” Tourville said.
The Royals were named the recipient of the 2021 Allen H. Selig Award for Philanthropic Excellence by Major League Baseball for its “Response to Recovery” program that utilized the Kansas City MLB Urban Youth Academy located east of Downtown to provide educational support for local youth and access to voting and COVID-19 vaccines.
Tourville addressed the issue of a future downtown baseball stadium which she said is still in the exploratory process.
“It’s not something that we take lightly. It’s something that the entire community is going to need to want. Any endeavor that the Royals and Kansas City take on will be much more than a stadium. It would be probably the largest social and civic project that Kansas City has seen… So it needs to be a catalyst certainly for economic impact with focus on the underserved. It needs to generate community impact and support, and the city has to really want it,” Tourville said.
Since the 1990s, sports venues as stand-alone buildings and facilities have given way to districts anchored by sports venues, said Rezac.
“People realize that stadiums, for that matter, any venue, concert venue, whatever it is, should not be on an island. And the success of the venue lies in the surrounding development mix, which inherently that mix creates a vibrant 24/7 walkable community. And by doing that, you're not only increasing opportunity for experiences, but also really increasing land value,” Rezac said.
“As we look to the future, it certainly is about continuing to elevate Kansas City on a map. Think of the potential opportunity of an outside headquarters relocating. The number of events that could be served in a downtown development would increase significantly, which drives up not just the commercial real estate but also the housing market, the potential for new businesses to thrive and those that are there to have more resources,” said Tourville.
Photo credit: Alistair Tutton