MLB created this economic problem but expects Royals, KC to pay a $2 billion solution

The MLB commissioner came to Kansas City this week, here and gone in a flash, though with some apparent purposes to a trip that included a stop at the Urban Youth Academy. There, about 45 minutes into an hour-long conversation in front of a local audience, we got to one of the points:

Assisting the campaign for a baseball stadium in downtown Kansas City. Ahem, the stadium in or around downtown Kansas City.

Commissioner Rob Manfred responded to a pair of pre-screened questions, but I want to highlight one thing he said in particular when referencing the combination of a proposed stadium and a surrounding entertainment district:

“For a market of this size, those (revenue-generating) opportunities are crucial in today’s game in order to put the ballclub in a position to be competitive over the long haul,” Manfred said. “If you’re in a really big media market and you get big media dollars, it’s less crucial. In markets like this (in Kansas City), you need that live-gate revenue opportunity to be competitive.”

One thing left out, and I couldn’t state it any more plainly: That’s baseball’s problem, and Kansas City (and the Royals) are being asked to help foot the bill on a $2 billion solution.

Or partial solution.

We could talk for a while about baseball’s economic complications, the absence of a salary cap and only a faint attempt at revenue sharing chief among them. The sport has made it annual tradition to drive a chunk of small-market franchises out of contention by Opening Day, and why that’s good business is something I’ll never understand. There’s a reason the league that chooses to do it differently, the NFL, owns a day of the week, if not the entire 365-day calendar.

I’m not here to simply rehash old talking points, but rather to stop and realize the depth of their effects. Think about where we stand now: The inequities inside baseball have created such a gap between the haves and have-nots that the league’s own commissioner considers it “crucial” for the Royals to vacate a building they have occupied for a half-century.

Just to be competitive. Just to have a chance to be competitive.

How can that be good for the game? The star players won’t dare cap their earnings, and not enough owners will draw that line in the sand during negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement.

So now it’s on all of us to level the playing field. To do the work they refuse to do. This is our problem now, they say. (For what it’s worth, and it’s worth something, the Royals owner certainly would prefer it didn’t have to be like this, and I wouldn’t be surprised to know the commissioner would like to see some changes to the financial models.)

That’s where baseball sits — offering its small markets a chance to catch up, so long as they can contribute billions and round up hundreds of millions more from their community for a stadium and entertainment district to supplement the revenue that its location alone cannot generate.

If the league truly believes that is the only path toward competitiveness — and they certainly want you, the prospective voter to believe it — they should first step of this process should require a look inward, not a look toward us.

And wait, did I say catch up? I meant fight to reach the middle of the pack. While Royals chairman and CEO John Sherman says ownership plans to re-invest profits from the district back into the team, how much of an impact can we really expect that to make? The Royals’ payroll falls $74 million short of league average. Not of No. 1 on the list. Shy of league average.

Look, the Royals would pursue a new stadium in a new location regardless of the current state of baseball. They aren’t telling us this is their sole or even primary motivation for a move, though it’s hard not to believe it isn’t a large part of it. To be clear, though, the TV revenue-sharing model in the NFL didn’t stop the Rams or Chargers from cozying up to the idea of cash-cow districts in Los Angeles. Other teams are doing it. Other leagues are doing it. It’s easy to understand why. There’s lots of money in it.

But those are examples of luxuries.

This, by the commissioner’s own admission, is a necessity. “Crucial” in order to be competitive, he said. Rolled right off the tongue. And even as the Royals would indeed pursue the project otherwise, they haven’t shied away from saying they too view it as a way to just win some more doggone games.

Can you imagine Roger Goodell matter-of-factly calling it “crucial” for the Chiefs to build a new stadium and entertainment district to drum up enough cash to keep Patrick Mahomes? Sure, the campaigning for the stadium might be a little smoother, but wouldn’t we at least stop to ponder its absurdity?

Yet Manfred’s message is essentially that if Kansas City doesn’t approve this stadium, baseball in this town for the next 25 years will look a heck of a lot like the past 25. And we didn’t even blink. Because we fear it just might be true. We’ve seen it unfold ourselves.

I asked Sherman if he viewed it problematic a stadium is considered a way to help balance the inequities that exist in baseball. His answer is basically in two parts, and I’ll note both:

“I think there’s some things we can do in baseball to help competitive balance — forget about development, new stadiums, all that,” Sherman said. “I think there are some things that we should try to work on to make more markets and their fan bases excited every year.

“... I’m not going to get frustrated about the current economics of baseball, because it’s the rules we have. I’m going to try to do everything I can to be entrepreneurial to be creative, to find ways to compete. And this can help us be more competitive. But the current rules of baseball are what they are.”

Absolutely, the Royals can do more. Increase payroll. Draft. Develop. All that. Not trying to ignore any of it. They are responsible for their residence in the standings.

This is just an additional point: They have to do more than their counterparts. The league’s framework requires it. And the commissioner believes they must do so much more that it includes building a stadium in a perfect spot surrounded by perfect cash flows.

Inside the league, it’s thought some small wins are coming. Bally Sports’ parent company Diamond falling apart should probably be a good thing for all of baseball but particularly small-market baseball— returning TV rights to the league, eliminating blackouts and, yes, leading to some potential revenue splits.

It could be a start, and even if it is only that, baseball ought to take advantage of anything it can, even if the scales will still be tipped toward the coasts.

It’s just a sad reality that the most powerful man in the game deems a project of this magnitude a vital part of the competitive package for small-market baseball.

Sadder yet that it might be accurate.