A new wave of stadium-building is busting budgets in America

On a summer evening in Kansas City, Kauffman Stadium is a fine place to be. A good game and $1 hot dogs await the 15,000 fans there to see the city’s major-league baseball team, the Royals. Before play begins, some mill about in the parking lot, drinking tallboys from the back of trucks. But amid the bonhomie is an undercurrent of worry. In April nearly 60% of local residents rejected a sales tax that would have helped pay for a new ballpark. Now there is a chance that the Royals might pick up their bats and go elsewhere. “If it stopped them from leaving, I’d take the tax,” says Daniel Capp, a lifelong fan.