Picture a stadium in a bustling downtown city. The stadium is massive, with tons of modern architecture on every side. It’s even got its own barbecue restaurant and something similar to a park above the stands. This is what the Royals’ new stadium could look like. On Sept. 14th, the Kansas City Royals held a press conference detailing the future of Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals for the past 48 years. However, The K may not house the Royals within the next ten years.

Team owner John Sherman announced on Sep. 14 that the team may look to move to downtown Kansas City when their lease is up in 2031.

The announcement was met with mixed criticism by fans, some supporting the move and others opposing it.

“First off, it would make it a lot harder to get to the stadium, and get downtown, mainly because of traffic already,” senior Luke Mallon said. “You have to think that even though they have a few areas where they’re thinking about putting the stadium, traffic would be a huge problem on game days. Second of all, Kauffman Stadium right now is currently by Arrowhead and it’s pretty cool, because they’re next to each other. Not just because it’s the same place but because it has a semblance to it.”

Many people who support the move believe that moving downtown will increase the amount of people that come to the games and therefore the Royals’ ticket sales. People also think that a downtown stadium would be better because of all of the businesses and such that would surround it, as the Truman Sports Complex doesn’t really have anything else but the stadiums.

One of the main concerns for a downtown stadium is the traffic in an already congested area. Many people contrast a new downtown stadium to St. Louis’ Busch Stadium.

“I’ve been to St. Louis and their stadium is downtown,” sophomore Tabitha Sloan said. “It was a nightmare trying to get in and parking was really bad. It was really pretty to look at from the inside because you could see the Arch. However, it wasn’t very fun to navigate around.”

Many also believe that building a new stadium would not make sense for the Royals and their profits.

“It’s kind of a toss up because you’re actually taking a big risk,” Mallon said. “Because once you build a stadium, it takes a few years to make that money back. I definitely think initially, people will want to see the new stadium, they’ll have lots and lots of more people coming. A few years after the new stadium has been built, people are going to start realizing, ‘oh you know traffic’s really bad now, I don’t want to get in a car crash,’ so it’s really a 50/50 chance on whether more people will consistently go.”

According to team owner John Sherman during their initial Sep. 14th press conference, the team will, “need to start thinking about our future plans for a stadium over the next five-to-10 years.”

“As much as I hate to say it, I think the move will happen soon,” Mallon said. “They’ll probably use up their lease. Even though I don’t agree with that, they’re just looking for ways to make money.”

Overall, a move downtown for the Royals seems to be a not-so-well received move by most, but nonetheless, it seems as though Kauffman could be vacated sooner, rather than later.