Kansas City Royals

The Royals have pitched a $1.9 billion stadium. That's twice as expensive as Atlanta's Truist Park and quadruple Denver's Coors Field. But it's not clear what's driving up the cost.

The team reached a deal with Hallmark Cards on a "transformative project" that will create a new ballpark at Crown Center near downtown Kansas City, Royals owner John Sherman said. The announcement comes a week after the City Council passed a financing package.

A spokesperson for the Kansas City Royals said the much-watched Aspiria site at 119th and Nall does not meet "our criteria for a stadium." Kansas City leaders are still pushing a downtown location, but the team has yet to make its decision.

Thousands of Royals fans are being surveyed about three proposed locations for a new ballpark and associated development: near downtown Kansas City, Clay County/North Kansas City and Johnson County/Overland Park.

Kansas has been trying to sway the region's NFL and MLB teams to cross the border. Lawmakers in both Kansas and Missouri have lobbed tax incentives and construction fund packages at the teams.

Verifiable numbers are hard to come by in the bidding war for the Royals and Chiefs. Last year, the two teams generated nearly $70 million in city, county and state taxes, but it would take decades to generate enough revenue to make up the price tag of new stadiums.

It's called ABS, or the automatic balls and strikes challenge system, and it creates a 2D adjustable strike zone.

Even the poorest-drawing baseball teams can attract more than 1 million fans in a year, far more than any football stadium. As Kansas and Missouri continue their border war over Kansas City sports teams, should they be focused on courting the Royals over the Chiefs?

On Monday, lawmakers in Kansas opted to extend the deadline for state incentives, so that the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals have more time to negotiate building new stadiums across state lines.

The teams have already had one year to negotiate with Kansas officials. But supporters say the deals are complicated — and are frustrated by delays.