Kauffman Stadium

Kauffman Stadium (/ˈkɔːfmən/) (nicknamed "The K") is a ballpark located in Kansas City, Missouri, and the home of Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals. It is next door to Arrowhead Stadium, home of National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs. Both make up the Truman Sports Complex. The stadium is named for Ewing Kauffman, the founder and first owner of the Royals. It opened in 1973 as Royals Stadium and was named for Kauffman 20 years later on July 2, 1993. Since its last major renovation in 2009, its listed seating capacity is 37,903.

Kauffman Stadium was built specifically for baseball during an era when building multisport "cookie-cutter" stadiums was commonplace. It is often held up along with Dodger Stadium (1962) in Los Angeles as one of the best examples of modernist stadium design. It is currently the only stadium in the American League to be named after a person and is also one of eight stadiums in Major League Baseball that does not have a corporate-sponsored name. The stadium is the fifth-oldest stadium in the majors and has hosted the 1973 and the 2012 MLB All-Star Games, along with Royals home games during the 1980, 1985, 2014, and 2015 World Series. Between 2007 and 2009, Kauffman Stadium underwent a $250 million renovation, which included updates and upgrades in fan amenities, a new Royals hall of fame area, and other updates throughout the facility.

In 2022, the Royals announced intentions to build and open a new stadium before the team's lease agreement with Jackson County expires at the end of the 2030 MLB season. In 2024, the team announced their intention for the stadium to be located in downtown Kansas City's Crossroads district. The plan would involve displacing several small businesses that would be in the footprint of the stadium. In April 2024, Jackson County voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative to help fund the new stadium by a 16% margin. A financial analysis of the new stadium plans estimates that the cost to taxpayers would be between $4.4 billion and $6.4 billion. As of June 2024, the team was considering relocating to Kansas City, Kansas.

In 1967, voters in Jackson County approved the bonds for the Truman Sports Complex, which replaced the multipurpose Municipal Stadium and featured a football stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs and a baseball stadium for the Kansas City Athletics. The owner of the Athletics, Charles O. Finley, had just signed a new lease to remain in Kansas City. The proposal of the Truman Sports Complex was unusual, as conventional wisdom at the time held that separate football and baseball stadiums were not commercially viable. Before the 1968 season, however, Finley moved the A's to Oakland, California, and their brand-new multipurpose stadium.

After the move, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri threatened to press for the revocation of baseball's antitrust exemption if they did not give Kansas City a new team. Major League Baseball responded by hastily granting expansion franchises to four cities, including a Kansas City team owned by local pharmaceutical magnate Ewing Kauffman. The new teams were due to start to play in 1971. However, Symington forced MLB to move up the start date to 1969, as he was unwilling to have Kansas City wait three years to have baseball again. The other expansion team in the American League, the Seattle Pilots, were without a suitable stadium in 1969 and the accelerated schedule forced by Symington led to their bankruptcy after just one season. In 1970, they relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. With lawsuits pending, Seattle returned to the majors with the Mariners in 1977.

Jackson County continued its plans to build a new ballpark. Like the rest of the complex, it was designed by Kivett and Myers, and constructed by the joint venture of the Sharp, Kidde, and Webb construction firms. Royals Stadium broke ground on July 11, 1968, and was opened in on April 10, 1973, with a 12–1 win over the Texas Rangers that had 39,464 fans in attendance. Five weeks later, Nolan Ryan of the California Angels threw the first of his seven no-hitters, blanking the Royals 3–0, three walks away from a perfect game. Two months later on July 24, the stadium hosted the first of its two All-Star Games.

Following the 1976 regular season, the Royals competed in the first postseason game of their history on October 9, but lost 4–1 at home to the New York Yankees in the ALCS. The Royals won the next game 6–3 on October 10 for their first postseason win in Royals Stadium.

The first World Series game held in Kansas City was on October 17, 1980, against the Philadelphia Phillies. In the first inning, George Brett hit a home run down the right field line, and the Royals recorded their first-ever World Series win, 4–3 in 10 innings, but lost the Series in six games.