Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
A picture is worth 60 million words (and bucks). I say that because the photo Pitch photographer Chris Mullins took of the 50 or fewer folks in the stands at Kemper Arena for the American Royal‘s big deal UPHA Championship horse show is a mind blower.
Because out of the 19,500 seats in Kemper – maybe “800 souls” including horses, as Pitch writer David Hudnall characterized the attendance – barely a fraction of that number could be seen taking in the action in the wide angle photo.
Seriously people, more moms show up at those totally lame kiddie soccer games in South Johnson County than were at Kemper for one of the American Royal’s premier events. And they want $60 million taxpayer dollars to tear down Kemper and put up a venue that holds 5,000 people or maybe they’ll move somewhere else?
Why don’t they just hold it at Cerner head Neal Patterson‘s ranch out south and be done with it?
The truly amazing thing is that highly respected businessmen like Patterson and UMB main man Mariner Kemper are trying are actually trying to con the KC Council into dropping 30 large on a new, smaller home for these horse shows.
With straight faces, no less.
And they’re not just trying to sell it, they’re trying to jam it down the city’s throat.
And forget about the sleight of hand these so-called civic leaders are employing to convince KC to invest just $30 million taxpayer dollars into this white elephant. Because once they get their filthy hands on that money, they intend to bag the State of Missouri and the Federal Government for another $20 million. Plus a million a year from the city to help operate it.
Have these American Royal dudes been holding all their meetings in Colorado because they can smoke while dreaming up ridiculous comparisons to their spectator-less horse and livestock shows and Major League Soccer?
Aren’t we just coming out of a recession and trying to make sure that taxpayer dollars – all taxpayer dollars – are spent wisely on the kind of things that create jobs and benefit the people who are paying for everything?
This deal reeks so bad it’s laughable that the KC Council is even considering it.
Call it fun house mirror financing.
Seriously, would you trust this man with $60 million and less than 800 paying customers in the stands?
And men like construction magnate Terry Dunn – who’s in a position to profit by his family’s construction biz participating in the tear down and/or construction of the new venue – should be ashamed of themselves for not so much trying to “save the American Royal” as to to fleece taxpayers and the city in a ruinously bad deal.
They bust small fries for scamming oldsters on rip off home repair deals but these guys get a pass because they can afford to hire the top law firm in town to bully another small fry, the Foutch Brothers, with an arguably better deal, into pulling its plans.
Now as Steve Jobs used to say, one more thing…
This Pitch piece is an incredibly well reported, well crafted investigative piece and the alt weekly is to be applauded form its fine work. Can anybody even faintly imagine the Star’s INK magazine doing a story like this?
My personal bottom line: Do not miss reading this Pitch story
Pitch writer David Hudnall
And to the slow hands at the Kansas City Star who with umpteen times the staffing totally missed out on reporting this story (because they laid off their best investigative reporter and kept the chick who’s obsessed with busting churches), shame on you guys.
This report could have been done in a fraction of the time it likely took the Pitch owing to the newspaper’s far larger reporting staff, yet somebody – everybody?- at 18th and Grand was asleep at the wheel and missed the chance to put these pushy business types in their place on a far larger scale.
Maybe it’s not too late, but after you read the Pitch report and the American Royal finds a way to blow this by the city council, you’ll be banging your head on your desk yif the KC Council passes this baby.
They shoot horses, don’t they?
Wow, no way to crowbar a mention of your glorious history at The Pitch into this?
That’s why God invented you, Mysterious…
What do I owe you for that?
The American Royals died when they made an exclusive agreement with one media source — KMBC. Very stupid management.
Interesting point, Jack…
That said, it’s hard to imagine us all rambling down to the stockyards to watch horsees and bulls just because they got wider media coverage.
That stuff is still pretty boring by todays standards.
Now the Gay Rodeo Championships they’ve had – that I can see going to.
No one knows that the American Royals is going on in KC. Where is the coverage? Even KMBC who owns the event coverage doesn’t cover it.
When was the last time you heard a advertisement of the AR on radio? Ever see a local business (something like HyVee with the Chiefs and Royals) tie into the AR?
Whoever is running the AR needs to be fired. It seems like they want it to fail.
There are many reasons for the American Royal’s demise, and the city is probably just as responsible as the Board of the America Royal itself. Outside of the Bar B Q and the BOTAR Ball, when did the events occur? Was there radio advertising? Since I don’t read the Star, the equivalent of two shares of McClatchy stock on a daily basis, there was not much marketing. Even the Great Western is better advertised in Denver, even if the champion Angus bull, one year, was discovered to be a dyed Charolais. As to the White elephant of Kemper, it is just as much a failure of the entire West Bottoms as anything else. Perhaps the new arena needs to be built in Manhattan, Kansas, but it is probably over for Kemper. There was always a problem building Sprint, while the city still owed money on Kemper. The theory of “if you build it they will come” has alredy been proven wrong with both of the Kansas City professional hockey and basketball teams, and I, for one, am tired of watching Kay Waldo Barns bounce the puck around at Sprint. Maybe they might come, but will they stay? Kansas City is a cowtown that has forgotten its roots, with no stockyards, no Golden Ox, and no history. Kansas Citians are falling further behind with no Sprint, Farmland Industries, Russell Stovers, and other Kansas City icons disapearing on a dailey basis. Perhaps we’re not competitive. In short, the city should have paid off Kemper before embarking on Sprint.
That’s a lot to chew on, CFPC…
I think the main reason for the American Royal’s demise is just the passage of time and changing entertainment tastes.
I was an escort a couple of times in the BOTAR Ball and it was kinda fun (or som it seemed) catching a couple of those horse thingies. It just seemed to go along with the overall experience and enough other people attended at the time that you didn’t feel like a total loser going.
However, it was never really very interesting or much fun – outside of who my date was and what lay in store for the rest of the evening.
I checked with my investigative reporter source again following the excellent Pitch takedown of the American Royal and the source still believes the rick guys will get their way.
How wonderful it is that we live in a city where the general public is so poorly informed and the one media with the clout to make something happen (or not happen as the case may be) are so clueless and toothless that a $60 (or more likely $70 to $80 million) mistake can be rubber stamped by a city government with no fear of or respect for the public they serve.
… and soon no AMC and Sprint.
Nice hard hitting piece Hearne.
Ouch…
the rich dudes win along with their political puppets.
cerner is redoing bannister mall. They’ve got some paybacks coming from
kc. But this article is interesting because no one cares about the royal anymore…
the parade is weak….the talent is weak…and you never know when its happening.
The bar b q should move to arrowhead where parking is perfect for such an
event.
nice work mr. c.
Read the Pitch story, guys, seriously…
Nobody hardly is showing up at these American Royal shows and that includes the participants. Forget about spectators.
And as pointed out in the story, the BBQ contest is really only a one night stand.
None of it – with the exception of the bbq albeit mostly for local pride purposes – really matters.
It just doesn’t.
Not one dime should be given the AR until it can demonstrate its relevance in today’s marketplace.
Sometimes in life we all have to move on. We can commemorate and celebrate our history but we can’t change things back to the way they used to be. Wouldn’t it be nice sometimes if we could.
I’d say the American Royal would be lucky to spin off it’s BBQ contest, the parade and maybe one weekend of horse and rodeo action- jam it all in and get it over with. Of course that means they won’t be able to afford a staff per se and will have to do things on the cheap. If they play their cards right – maybe hook up with AEG and get a concert tie in like Memphis has.
Somebody needs to shove aside these rich dudes with their hands out and get somebody on the plan who is looking ahead – not behind – and find an altogether new way to celebrate out rich agricutural heritage.
Speaking of which, has the Ag Hall in Bonner Springs finished going toes up yet?
It seems this story parallels some of the same monkey business that goes on in Lawrence, next there will be a blue ribbon panel of all the cronies to decide who gets the spoils.
Point well taken, arrant…
Trouble is, there are no meaningful checks and balances in Lawrence and the bad guys (masquerading oftentimes as “good guys”) are allowed to run free with little to no fear of public accountability.
The unfortunate thing is all this for Kansas City however is that when and if the American Royal pulls this scam off, the newspaper of record is likely to rationalize it away as some sort of livable solution.
Will they hark back on Dunn’s pushing for the deal if his construction company lands a cushy deal? Don’t hold your breath.
At least the Star, Pitch and KCC rose to the occasion to fight the good fight. That pretty much seldom to never happens in Lawrence, even when the Journal World weighs in with its token criticism.
The American Royal, one of my pet peeves. The summary for the TLDR folks: It was the Emperor’s New Clothes come to life.
It looks as though in recent years, almost everyone has conceded that the Emperor has no clothes and never did. I arrived in town in the 1980s, and the KC newspapers were relentless about foisting this crap on readers–that the American Royal was one of the premier, exciting annual events in the city. You can find countless examples of the Star hierarchy kissing up to the city’s movers and shakers, but this was one of the most blatant and indefensible. There were two newspapers, and every day during the Royal, each paper had an article about some aspect–the intricacies of horse grooming or how little Janie raised that heifer all by her lonesome. They also published a schedule each day of the Royal events, as if there were some massive contingent prioritizing the outing: “Mabel, we’ll to to the hog judging Thursday evening, and that way we’ll have time to get a cinnamon roll before the quarterhorse competition begins.
And of course, the winner of the horse show “prancing to victory” was routinely chronicled in the Sunday Star with front page placement as if it were a moon landing. All along, the vast majority of those in the metropolitan area had no interest and no connection to the endless drivel. More than 20 years ago, I attended one of the post-rodeo concerts, with a well-known country singer headlining, and Kemper was 2/3rds empty because who wanted to sit through a couple of hours of rodeo before hearing the music? And most of people left during the concert after hearing how awful the sound was–the concert was just an afterthought and apparently no one did any sound checks.
So now the paper has changed corporate hands several times, doesn’t have the same over-the-top suck-up mentality and in any case can’t afford to give away hundreds of column inches any more, and no one has raised a stink about where all the coverage went because no one was interested in the first place.
IMHO, what killed the American Royal was losing the Future Farmers of America National Convention to Louisville, KY. Not having any Stock Yards anymore played a small part , but the FFA going is what did it. Do they still have a Parade? As poster above said there is no coverage that I see or hear. It’s kind of sad, American Royal season used to be fun in this town. I wonder how it’s working in Louisville? It would be a nice follow up.
The lack of interest in the Royal is all on the Royal. There are shows in the Midwest, like the American Paint Horse Association World Show, Reining Horse Associaton and Barrell Racing Futurity that have attendance that makes the Royal look like just some show in Tongy.
The Royal can pretend to blame the facilities at Kemper/Hale, but they’re just as good as the facilities in other cities that far outdraw the Royal’s shows.