Pay to Play Sports and the Professionalisation of Youth Athletics in Kansas City

What follows are the prepared remarks I had intended to speak at June 20th, 2019 meeting of the Kansas City Missouri Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Meeting. Alas, I did not know that I would only have two minutes to speak, shame on me, but I did cram and spend many hours the night before preparing what I wanted to get across. Ultimately, I was only able to share a small fraction of them, and I was nervous and certainly didn't leave the lasting impression I wanted but I did get to go on record opposing this ordinance but I'm not quite done doing my part. If anyone reading this agrees with my feelings toward pay to play sports and the professionalization of youth sports, I encourage you to share this post with your friends. I love my city. 

Good morning, my name is Ben Keefe and I am the President of the Northland Sports Alliance Board of Directors. I’d, like to thank all the Council Members and Committee Members that are here and thanks to some of the other members of Northland Sports Alliance Board and Staff joining me this morning. Also, thank you to all the others here speaking on behalf of the supporters of this ordinance, regardless of how we might feel on the issue, I appreciate the willingness to engage and make a difference in your communities by advocating for things you believe in. We need more of that type of civic activism so thank you for being here as well. 

I am here to speak against moving forward with this project (Northland Sporting Complex) for a few reasons. Ordinance 190485 that was filed on JUNE 13th of 2019 and is already in front of the full council, we need to slow down and finish what we've started.

First, the pay to play model for sports is not in the best interest of the entire community. While there are benefits, they certainly do not outweigh the costs associated with them. What this proposal will do, is primarily benefit for profit tournament providers, competitive soccer league play, tournament baseball and softball, club soccer practicing, club camps, and games. What you don’t hear in there is recreational sports programming. Look at similar developments in the metro. 135^th and Switzer Scheel’s complex, Wyandotte Sporting Park, Swope Soccer Village, Olathe Soccer Complex. At nearly all these complex’s if you want to get on those fields, you are going to have to pay. Pay to play. These fields will continue to further that trend and provide more opportunities subsidized by the city for people who don’t need those subsides. How is that in the best interest for the participation of everyone? How is the public good being served here? Should we really be having the city subsidize competitive PAY TO PLAY sports, when isn’t it the responsibility of KCMO and the Parks and Rec team to provide recreational play for kids?

We have a park in Northland, perfectly located at one of the soon to be most trafficked areas off HWY 152 and Congress called Tiffany Hills Park. For the past few decades, the organization I am with, the Northland Sports Alliance, formerly the Southern Platte County Athletic Association, has been providing recreational programming in soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, among others in partnership with Kansas City, Missouri and Platte County at Tiffany Hills Park and Mark L. McHenry Park (formerly Tiffany Springs Park) and we’ve been very successful at running a non-profit, recreational level based program for kids in the Park Hill School District. It’s low cost, and in some cases no cost with our needs based assistance program, way for kids to play sports with their classmates. We try to group them by grade and school when we make teams. I am telling you this because…

For the past few years, we have been attempting as an organization to build out and finalize Tiffany Hills Park so we can start to meet some of that unmet demand for field space in the Northland. I have attended Parks Partners Meetings, shared a plan with Commissioner Dagmar Wood at a meeting a few years ago on this same thing. Well, we have a shovel ready plan that has already been approved by our board and was designed by Richard Allen a Landscape Architect who works for the City of Kansas City Missouri in the Park Department. I have copies of the approved plan. He and city staff from Parks and Rec came out to the park, presented three options to us, we discussed and gave our approval for the plan I have copies of here today. Again, this is a plan designed by the city for a city park many, many years ago and we have been working to try to make it happen. For as little as $2 million dollars we could finish this through our own RFP process and do the expansion ourselves. You can see the plan below. We just want the city to finish what it started.

Speaking of which, we have been told by PIAC and city officials before that there were funds allocated specifically for Tiffany Hills around $400K and we still have no accounting by anyone of where that money went or who it went to. I just learned that the second district councilman, Rob Fowler, has already committed $250K a year for the next four years, from the 2nd District PIAC budget to help pay the debt service on these bonds. So even less funding will be available for existing parks in the Northland for the next four years, because we want to subsidize a big, far to costly, pay to play soccer complex.  We, the Northland Sports Alliance have even gone so far as to explore a partnerships with a developer to see if we, on our own as programmers of that park, can finish it ourselves with PRIVATE money and we have heard nothing. What's really going on here? Why would we not use existing infrastructure we have currently in place, closer access to those already existing hotels that are trying to just increase occupancy rates, they aren’t talking about new hotels, just filing the ones they have, at least that is what the speaker supporting the ordinance for the hotels along I-29 said. We could do that easier with the already existing plan. 

Why the rush to spend $42 million dollars of taxpayer money when we have credible plans on the table that could be done for a fraction of the cost. Is that being a good steward of taxpayer money? Also, if you look at the Fact Sheet on the City Clerk's website about this ordinance, the actual cost for this project is $68 million taxpayer dollars when you add in the debt service. That's $68 million that could be used for potholes instead going to suburbanite kids under a pay to play model. Once again, subsidizing those who don't need it and financing it by people who won't use it, all the KCMO taxpayers and those recreational level kids who just want to play with their friends.

For far less money, we could add an additional four to seven artificial fields on existing park land that is ready to go for this development. This is already land KCMO owns, that is part of the master plan for this part already, the infrastructure is already in place for this at an existing park only a few miles from this location. Ask yourself, why? What is the city up to on this? We could provide a place where kids could be afforded the same level of playing field, the literal same type of playing field as the best competitive clubs in the city, I can see it now, “City Council Leveling the Playing Field for Sports in Kansas City.” It would be a Park, not a soccer complex, its multi-use, so expanding to any type of field sport is possible. Being able to expand to new field sports from a recreational level is something very few place can do. Could you imagine being able to play rugby as a seventh grader in a rec league?

Finally, the costs associated with this ordinance and project will primarily go to the ENTIRE community that’s who will pay for it, but the benefits will go to only a few. Like you said at your acceptance speech Mayor Elect Lucas, “you believe in fairness for everyone, participation for everyone, and a strong city for everyone, we, the Northland Sports Alliance and the KCMO Parks and Recreation have an established relationship and plan to address this demand and provide these opportunities you talk about. This ordinance no. 190485 does not.

Thank you for your time.