Kansas City is a world leader in designing stadiums. Here’s how to future-proof them | Opinion

In April, Jackson County taxpayers voted down public funding for a new baseball stadium for the Kansas City Royals and renovations to the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium. While things have been largely quiet publicly since that vote, I am sure that there are significant discussions and activities going on behind the scenes regarding how to finance a new stadium and renovate Arrowhead.

Kansas City is already a global leader in the design, engineering and construction of major professional sports stadiums. That makes this stadium issue not only a local issue, but a national and international one as well. Futurists predict a boom in stadium construction and major renovations over the next several decades. In fact, major billion-dollar new stadiums and 500-plus-million-dollar stadium renovations will take place over the next few years in Buffalo, Atlanta, Nashville, Jacksonville, Baltimore, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Tampa Bay, the Chicago area, Salt Lake City, New York City, Calgary, Los Angeles, Charlotte and other cities. Kansas City firms will be leading the way globally in designing and building these stadiums.

There is now an opportunity here to create a new stadium concept that would be more popular with taxpayers and better serve the entire community than the current stadium designs. In addition, this new plan could produce more revenue than current designs, and therefore could secure additional future private sector financial support. This new type of stadium design can work for university, high school and minor league stadiums as well throughout the country, and even internationally.

The concept does not suggest that we cram multiple teams from different sports such as football and baseball into one stadium. That flawed concept was laid to rest right here in Kansas City in the 1960s when a proposed shared baseball and football stadium downtown was scrapped — and for good reason.

Rather, future stadiums, in addition to what is required for their home teams, could also include facilities for dozens of popular sports, built within the stadium complex itself. While this is a futuristic concept, there is already an indoor golf facility at the Milwaukee Brewers’ American Family Field, operated by X-Golf.

I call this concept the “multi-plex stadium,” or “multi-use stadium.” I am sure others have come up with a similar idea in the past. Examples of the types of facilities that could be built into future professional sports stadiums and open to the public 365 days a year include: indoor golf simulators, tennis, basketball, swimming, diving, bowling, indoor track and field, gym equipment, pickleball, chess, checkers, video games, indoor rowing, archery, darts, boxing, wrestling, martial arts, yoga, tai chi, Pilates, skateboarding and more.

For each sport included in this new stadium concept, the build-out could support instructional classes, associated restaurant facilities and retail shopping for related items. It could host school field trips to let students try their hands and get professional instruction in many sports that they would never experience without such an attraction.

‘Multi-plex’ idea offers year-round opportunities

I came up with this idea because one of my goals as a PGA member is to expand golf. I became a Class A PGA professional member when I was 67. I developed the largest PGA Jr. League golf program in the United States, which is 100% scholarship based, in coordination with the Brooklyn Golf Alliance.

When I began studying this idea, I visited Kansas City in October 2023 and discussed it with a local architect, who explained how entrenched in the sports stadium business local engineering and especially architectural firms are. Simply put, numerous companies in Kansas City are global leaders in the business. So, I expanded my research and realized Kansas City is very possibly the place where this idea had the best chance of being successful. PGA officers told me they would love to see indoor golf thrive in future stadiums.

As I continued to work on this idea, I decided I would come back to Kansas City this fall to pitch this idea directly to key sports stadium firms in the city, the teams and government officials. Since I am an educator and basically retired, I am not looking for a job or any work related to this idea. I simply want to help make this concept happen because of its obvious benefits for the people of Kansas City from all walks of life who live in communities with sports stadiums at the professional, college and even high school levels.

This multi-plex stadium concept could transform seldom-used structures into safe, accessible attractions for urban and rural residents alike. It could offer separate and lucrative naming rights opportunities for each area where a different sports activity is offered. The multi-plex stadium could be filled with healthy, sports-related activities that people in Kansas City and the world over need, now more than ever. The multi-plex stadium could produce substantially more jobs, more revenue, serve a much more economically diverse population of users, bringing together people of all backgrounds and ages. Simply put, it could produce substantially more value for residents and taxpayers in localities that build them than single-purpose stadiums do.

The future of stadiums now rests with the people and leaders of Kansas City. I hope local firms, along with the Royals and the Chiefs, take advantage of this innovative concept for the betterment of the community and the world. Kansas City has a unique opportunity to continue and even expand its position as an innovative leader in how we design and build the sports stadiums of the future.

Herb Rubenstein is a lawyer, PGA member, author and a founding member of the board of directors of the 501(c)(6) nonprofit Association of Professional Futurists. He lives in Lexington, Virginia.