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You will have just one more homestand to check out beautiful Kauffman Stadium, known league-wide as one of the best stadiums in baseball. Now there is concrete data to back that up. Kauffman Stadium ranks as the fifth-best stadium in baseball, according to a review of over 130,000 stadium reviews by Review Trackers. Only Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, AT&T Park in San Francisco, and Safeco Field in Seattle rank higher.
Review Trackers uses a “natural language understanding algorithm” to analyze hundreds of thousands of reviews of baseball stadiums. They identified both positive and negative comments, and tied them to a keyword to sort into four main categories: (1) food and drink; (2) fan experience; (3) family experience; and (4) facility. Kauffman ranked second overall in “family experience.”
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Graphic used courtesy of Review Trackers.
Kauffman fared well, ranking in the top seven in every category except “food and drink”, where they ranked 15th out of 30 stadiums. It is not the hot dogs that drags down that ranking, despite news reports of poor food standards and below-average rankings in food safety. Fans ranked Kauffman as having the seventh-best hot dogs, with AT&T Park leading the big leagues. Dodger Stadium, famous for its “Dodger Dogs”, ranked fifth. Interestingly, barbecue has surpassed hot dog as the most well-loved ballpark fare.
Kauffman’s mediocre ranking seems to stem from reviews of its beer selection. Out of all stadiums Kauffman ranked seventh-worst in “beer”. In addition to MillerCoors products, the official beer of the Royals, Kauffman carries Boulevard products, Leinenkugel, Goose Island, Blue Moon, and craft brews Kona Brewing Company, Widmer Brothers Brewery, Mother’s Brewing Company, Santa Fe Brewing, Founders Brewing, and Martin City Brewery.
Fans liked the experience at the K, ranking it seventh-overall. The ambiance and beauty of the stadium, courtesy of recent stadium renovations, and the iconic fountains likely added to that rating. PNC Park in Pittsburgh ranked as the best fan experience.
Despite being the sixth-oldest ballpark in baseball, Kauffman ranked as the fourth-best facility, with Oriole Park in Baltimore topping the list. In particular, the Crown Vision video screen ranked as the most-liked scoreboard in baseball. Interestingly, some of the newer ballparks did not fare well in fan reviews, giving weight to the adage “they don’t make them the way they used to.”
Kauffman did exceptionally well in “family friendliness” ranking behind only PNC Park. “Family Funday Sunday” where the park hosts entertainment for kids and allows them to run the bases after the game, was cited as a big reason for Kansas City’s high ranking.
Not surprisingly, O.co Coliseum in Oakland ranked as the least-liked stadium, with SunTrust Park in Atlanta, Rogers Centre in Toronto, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and Yankee Stadium in New York also near the bottom. Wrigley Field, ranked as the sixth least-liked stadium. You can see all the data and conclusions from Review Trackers here.
What are your favorite stadiums in the league? What do you like the most about Kauffman? What would you like to see improved? What do you think of the beer and food selection?