Kansas City Current season ticket holders will be charged around $800 to park their cars at the team’s new stadium according to an email the club sent to season ticket holders last week.
In that email, the club revealed that on-site parking would run $50 per match, plus taxes and fees. In order to park at all of the Current’s 13 regular season home games – plus one yet-to-be-announced home game as part of NWSL’s intended international tourney during the Olympic break – 2024 fans would need to pay $700 before taxes and fees.
In a receipt obtained from a fan, the total price for full-season parking including those taxes and fees was $816.93 if purchased through SeatGeek, or $58.35 per game. If purchased directly through the Current, then the total comes to $795, or $56.78 per game.
In a different email to members, the Current did offer a $10 per car credit to use inside CPKC stadium for those who carpooled with four or more fans.
By comparison, the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs also charge $50 per game for parking, with a season pass at the same level going for $370 ($46.25 per game). Sporting KC of MLS offers a free parking option located a little less than a mile from Children’s Mercy Park, with other lots closer to the stadium in the $25-30 range per game.
Both ADA-compliant and non-ADA parking cost $795 for the season if purchased through the club. ADA-compliant season parking passes are still available and single-game passes will also be available. The price of those passes is not currently available.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is not illegal to charge for ADA-compliant parking, so long as you do not charge more than you would have charged individuals without disabilities. However, people with disabilities tend to earn significantly lower median incomes than those who do not have a disability, according to the Pew Research Center.
There may be offsite ADA-compliant parking available, from which the team said it plans to run shuttles that can accommodate mobility aids and will stop close to a stadium entrance. It’s unknown at this time how many shuttles the club will run from which locations.
In its email to season ticket holders, the Current stated that the number of season ticket memberships exceeds the number of available parking passes, and that purchasing a pass in one of the four lots by the stadium would be on a first-come first-serve basis.
The lack of on-site parking was always part of the club’s development plans; as noted by the KC Star, the stadium plans only required the Current to provide 2,000 spaces while CPKC Stadium will have a capacity of 11,500, with the team expected to count on additional public parking around the riverfront.
Other transportation options the Current has put forward include walking, biking, busing, ride share, and a planned streetcar extension. The groundbreaking for that planned extension is scheduled for March 1 and construction is estimated by city authorities to take about two years.
While there is a riverfront pathway that leads to the stadium, the pathway is difficult to access close to the stadium, necessitating either walking along streets without good walking/biking infrastructure or crossing the train tracks that separate downtown Kansas City, Mo. from the riverfront via a pedestrian bridge over a mile away from the stadium.
The bus stops listed by the team at 3rd and Grand and 5th and Grand are located close to that pedestrian bridge, making them also a mile-plus walk to the stadium.
The daytime temperature in summer in Kansas City frequently exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit in high humidity, with June through August average temperatures ranging from 84-90 degrees Fahrenheit.
And while ride share from downtown to the stadium might be affordable – Lyft shows options for under $10 during off-peak hours – those costs will add up over the course of 14 home games, should fans want to attend every match.
Kansas City is widely known to be a car-dependent city for the vast majority of residents. Census data from 2022 indicates that just two percent of the population commutes to work by a method other than driving, with 73 percent driving alone.
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(Photo: Christopher Smith for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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