Few things can shut down an entire city, the Chiefs are One of them we ain't done yet.

Next up, another big party as the NFL draft gets ready to roll into town.

This is going to be the biggest fan event in our history.

And it's public test day at the airport.

What did hundreds of pretend passengers uncover as they kick the tires the bathroom stalls and baggage claim at the new look KCI Whew, that was a long time comin Week in review is made possible through the generous support of AARP, Kansas City RSM, Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlise Gourley, the Courtney Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize and Bank of America and a co trustees.

And by viewers like you, thank you.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines.

It's been an extraordinary week in Kansas City, and an extraordinary week deserves some extraordinary journalists.

Chris Ketz with us.

Not only did he host the news of the Super Bowl in Phenix, he then turned around and hosted wall to wall coverage of the big parade.

We're also supposed to have your wife with us, but she's a little under the weather to going to Arizona and then the parade.

To let the record reflect.

I am Mr. Dana.

wright.

And yeah, she has what we would call in the old days I had called.

Yeah, but you survived all of it this week.

But but she sends her apologies and best wishes.

Absolutely.

What we're thrilled to have you with us also with this, by the way, I should tell you that he is the person for I always turn to for anything to do with sports.

He's the man who also alerted me of the crowds already gathered at the parade route at 4 a.m. when he was coming into work at 610 Sports Bob Fescoe.

And in addition to covering downtown, Kevin Collison was one of the human guinea pigs this week on the public test of the new airport.

He's with City Scene.

KC Now, how often does this happen?

Every school district, many of our colleges, every Kansas City Library branch and more than a few businesses shuttered their doors on Wednesday for what could be the biggest gathering in Kansas City history.

Not very often are you able to say you're.

The greatest team in the world and have the greatest.

Players in the world.

And now the greatest organization in the world, and most of all.

The greatest fans.

In the world.

We love you, man.

Now, this is just the beginning.

We ain't done yet.

All righty.

Bob Frisco, We did this all two years ago.

What was the difference?

The difference is Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

I mean, there really is nothing else to say about this team other than Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

And we can rewind to March when they traded Tyreek Hill and everybody was upset.

Oh my God, this team's not going to be any good.

And I said all along, they've got Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

As long as they have those two guys, they're going to be just fine.

Andy Reid is the greatest coach in the sport right now, and Patrick Mahomes, in my opinion, is the second greatest quarterback in league history.

And so we're living with two of the greatest we've ever seen at the two most important positions.

And then Brett Veach is a genius as well.

We had this huge parade downtown in your backyard.

Kevin Collison Was it bigger than what we experienced two years ago?

I can't really say.

I haven't seen any estimates.

I know everybody thought it'd be between 800,000 and a million, which was a couple of years ago.

But when you take a look at that video, the that just soared over the crowd, it just was really, really a beautiful sight.

I really wish I could tell you exactly how many human beings show.

It's always an estimate, though, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I would assume that it definitely matched whatever the expectations were, which again, was somewhere between 800,000 and a million people, which would be almost half the metropolitan area.

So you do take those with a grain of salt.

You know, we've been looking at some of the highlights from the Chiefs parade.

Here are some footage I want you to take a look at.

This is downtown Philadelphia.

Immediately after the Super Bowl game, we see scenes of cars being overturned and police in riot gear trying to stop angry Eagles fans from tossing bricks through windows and tearing down metal crowd control barriers.

How did an estimated 1 million people in downtown Kansas City behave?

Chris?

I think quite well.

It's Kansas City.

I think what you're seeing right now on your TV screens and computer screens, if you're watching us digitally, is a city that has a fan base that really expected their team to come in and win Super Bowl 57.

And when they didn't, there was a reaction to at.

Least two arrests connected with the parade.

One person was armed with a knife, was arrested, and a second person who assaulted an officer just outside the parade route.

In your vantage point, was it a smooth parade?

I thought it was great.

I mean, if you have, you know, 500000 to 1000000 people and you only have two arrests, that's pretty good.

That's pretty good day, especially with everybody drinking, you know, down there and having themselves a good time.

You know, I have to say, I'm not the hugest of sports fans.

I'm not the hugest of Chiefs fans.

But is there anything in Kansas City that could ever bring that many people together other than sports?

Kevin That is an excellent question.

And I highly doubt it.

I mean, a lot of people talk about the Super Bowl being our secular holiday that can bring everybody together, even in our polarized times.

Sports is the great unifier.

And one other quick footnote.

I mean, the Philly fans have been legendary forever.

For.

Being rowdy, climbing poles.

You know, and I think it's a marvelous contrast that people here really celebrated their team, had a great time, interacted with the players along the route, and nobody turned over any cars or tried to scale any polls.

The only time people were scaling anything is to get a good look at the stage.

There were some people in trees and in light poles, and I think at the end of the afternoon, if I'm not mistaken, my wife called me from crowds.

She goes, There's a horse in the Crown Center shot.

But I mean, other than that, I mean, it ended up being a really nice day.

Now it's pretty tame.

But yeah.

Right now, by the way, if your package from UPS or FedEx was delayed this week, there's a good reason for that.

That's because Kansas City has been flooded with deliveries of Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, soft pretzels and snack cakes after the 941.

I think local news stories of our local elected officials doing these sporting backs with their campaign compatriots in Philadelphia, is that something we can abolish the next time or is that still have a value?

It's funny you say that.

My co-host, Josh Klinghoffer, brought that up because why are we still doing these pats?

We're going to win every one of them.

So, you know, you can stop doing the political bets, but I may win with my cousin.

He lives in Philadelphia, and those soft pretzels are so outstanding.

I can't wait till they arrive.

I'm going to be so happy when I see them.

Now, speaking of Bets, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly won big this week.

I made the first legal sports wager in Kansas at Hollywood Casino.

It turns out that the Chiefs are always a good bet.

Kelly bet $15 on the Chiefs when they were at 15 to 1, pocketing her $165 payout, which she donated to Patrick Mahomes is charity.

How much did Missouri Governor Mike Parson win?

How about zero, even though he regularly wears a Chiefs jersey and was at the game, Missouri has not approved sports betting with 50 million wagering on the Super Bowl, placing a collective $16 billion in legal battles.

Missouri now kicking itself.

Kevin They probably are.

There was a fascinating little stat that popped up.

I can't remember who reported it that the a quarter million bets were turned away from Missouri because they use a GPS system on the Kansas gambling.

And if it picks up anybody trying to make a wager on the Missouri side of the border, it kicks it back in.

A quarter million people tried to make bets and they got rejected.

I guarantee you that we're going to have sports gambling here in Missouri in the not too distant future.

I have acknowledged that I'm not the hugest of sports fans, but I am curious.

I have approval, prurient interest here when we have about a thousand reporters, editors and videographers from Kansas City going to the Super Bowl.

Bob, do they all get into the stadium?

Are they all getting a free ticket to go and see the game?

No, the majority of them are sitting in a tent in the park.

Okay.

Oh, I was I was wondering that I had numerous Super Bowls over my time.

And I don't know that I've ever actually been in the stadium covering a Super Bowl.

Most of the time you're sitting in a parking lot in a tent just watching it on TV like everybody else, or you're watching a game and then you have to leave at the beginning of the fourth quarter because, you know, you have a 9:00 newscast back in Kansas City on Sunday night.

So the other third year you're back out in the parking lot on a riser with, you know, dozens of other television crews from all over the world.

It seems such a good gig, but a lot of waiting around and from the outside.

Yeah.

All right.

Now that the parade is over, Kansas City's next big party is the NFL draft just two months away now, the three day football spectacle begins April 27th at Union Station.

It's the first time the city will host the selection bonanza.

And we're being told this is going to be the largest NFL draft footprint in history.

What surprised me about this story, this is most of the events around this are all totally free.

Everything's free.

It's great.

The NFL does an amazing thing with the draft and that's have it free for everybody.

And you don't need a ticket.

We just show up.

And the parade that we saw on Wednesday, I've been told it was kind of a dry run for the draft because they're expecting about the same amount of people for the draft as they had for the parade.

And so if you kind of figured out everything that you needed to do ahead of time to get down there and to not deal with all the traffic and maybe you got yourself a hotel room or whatever, that's kind of going to be the same thing for the draft and yeah, free to the public and there's so many activities and events.

It's not just them reading the names.

There's going to be the NFL experience and concerts and all kinds of just great family stuff for people to participate.

I think the the the original number that had been tossed around is that the draft would attract somewhere in the neighborhood of 350,000 people.

My my guess is it'll be probably way north of that.

But where do all those people stay?

Kevin Well, we definitely have a lot of hotels downtown these days and it Crown Center, etc.

I think, you know, I don't know what the breakdown is between local people who go to the draft and folks who come in from out of town.

I have a hunch will definitely be able to accommodate all those folks.

I mean, you've got the big Crown Center hotels, you've got the new Lowes, you've got another dozen at least hotels within an easy walking distance.

So I think they're not going to have too many problems being able to stay there.

So we can have concerts.

Can we expect like Taylor Swift and Elton John to be here in Kansas City for the draft?

I would love that.

I would definitely go to see Taylor Swift and Elton John.

Maybe they could do a duet together.

That'd be so much fun.

All right.

Now that the Super Bowl and the big victory parade are behind us, will the Chiefs now be being pushed into finally making an announcement about their future plans?

With the royals still adamant about moving to a new downtown ballpark, the Chiefs are being remarkably silent about what they want to see happen.

Is this when they tell Kansas City that we can do one better, not only can we win the Super Bowl, but we can also host it too.

That is, if you support a new tax election that will pair a new downtown ballpark with a roof over our head.

That will allow Kansas City to finally host America's biggest game ball.

Well, and that was the plan many years ago when we had the original, you know, vote for the two stadiums and nobody voted for the roof.

That would have covered both Kauffman and Arrowhead.

But it's time to upgrade this stadium.

I think the Hunt family and I will speak for them on this one.

They've got to have stadium envy just going around and seeing L.A. and Las Vegas every year and seeing those great stadiums.

It's time to upgrade Arrowhead Stadium, not necessarily just for the Chiefs, but they've got the Arrowhead event side of things.

They're rolling out concerts and events constantly.

And you can't have things outside really in Kansas City between, I don't know, November and March probably.

Right.

And so you need to have that indoor venue so you can attract those big events, the Super Bowl, the Final Four major concerts, all of that kind of stuff.

I know Arrowhead is just continually trying to grow their revenues and an indoor stadium helps with that.

To your question, though, Nick, I don't know that winning a Super Bowl necessarily changes the Chiefs timeline when it comes to making a decision.

I think they probably already made the beginnings of a decision, and it's just a question of figuring out the time to sort of execute it and release that information.

And I'm sorry, it also has to get tied into the Chiefs.

Are the royals hope to have a vote in August on extending that $0.38 sales tax.

And I they've got to have some kind of a solid identity, a choice of where they want to put the ballpark and be.

The chiefs have to come open.

But you know on the roof thing I'm not hearing it's 100%, you know, because we got an interesting situation where the chiefs have said they really love Arrowhead.

They want to stay there.

If they can.

And of course, there's going to be a lot of negotiating, etc., and back and forth.

So the question is, can you actually put a roof over the existing bowl?

Because I don't think they're trying to resurrect the rolling roof approach that had been part of it.

So there's still gets back to the major question, what exactly do the Chiefs want?

And is it something that can be funded under the same format that the Royals say they can do their public ask, which is extending the 3/8 and sales tax?

So yeah, a lot of people even I think at the county, which is the landlord out there, want to know what the chiefs want right now.

Are the chiefs committed to staying where they are?

No, I don't think so.

Nor should they be committed to staying where they are right now.

We have the beauty of having this thing called state line, right?

Most of the time it's a detriment in the state and you can't get anything done.

But in a situation like this, if I'm both franchises, I'm talking to both sides of the state line and finding where the best offer is and where I can get the best bang for my buck.

And if I'm the Chiefs, I'm definitely looking at a legend because it looks like baseball's going downtown where it needs to be and should be.

But if I'm the Chiefs man, I'm working both sides of the state line to find out the best deal for me.

It's definitely going to involve the states people may regret.

Governor Parsons getting booed the other day at the rally because the state of Missouri is going to probably have to step up significantly to keep the chiefs in Missouri, because Kansas is definitely going to come back and come up with a solid offer that would involve the state of Kansas getting engaged in this.

And I'm sure the chiefs are going to be able to play both off the other to get the best deal.

As we've talked about.

It's no secret with the legalized gambling in Kansas, when they put in that clause of the certain percentage is going to go towards attracting a team to the area.

I mean, you got to think that's the chiefs which which to be fair.

Yeah that is in in that was in the bill but it's not like two or $3 million is going to make a whole lot of difference here when it comes to attracting one team or another.

Now, if the chiefs, though, aren't willing yet to break their silence on what they want to happen at Arrowhead Stadium, are they willing to break their silence on their team name?

Stephen Colbert used his national TV show this week to take a shot at the Chiefs and the Tomahawk chop.

It was a fun night of football.

If you don't count watching 30,000 people doing the tomahawk chop.

Sadly, it looks like the NFL once again failed.

To end racism.

Piece in the style.

This week went even further, saying the latest win should mark the perfect time for the Chiefs to ditch what some say is a culturally insensitive name proposed on the Kansas City Kings, the Kansas City Scouts and the Kansas City Wolves.

The Guardian newspaper in London and USA Today also running stories about this.

How much of a protest effort was actually underway before we get into this?

When you were in Phenix.

This week, in fact, there were Kansas City people out there protesting when it comes to this outside the Super Bowl, as a matter of fact.

And in Glendale, Arizona.

You know, this is a story that continues to be out there.

It continues to be reported.

I think it's a story that resonates with an awful lot of people, maybe not necessarily within Kansas City, but I don't think it is a story that has resonated to a level that makes the Chiefs want to make a decision to change something.

I think the Chiefs have obviously done things down through the years to try to to reach out and make connections with Native American groups around here.

But there's the fan base, and I don't see much of an appetite within the fan base for the Chiefs to want to make any sort of a change when it comes to their.

But now you have people like Stephen Colbert doing his show, making bringing a more national profile to this issue.

Do you see any evidence from Clark Kent that they may be considering some change?

No, I don't think so at all.

And I think a lot of what Chris said is what I feel about the whole issue.

I don't hear anybody in Kansas City talking about this.

And Stephen Colbert had his his one moment.

But I think the chiefs I think they do an amazing job of talking to Native American folks.

They have a guy on staff that they just recently hired who's in charge of all of that.

No other franchise has really had that over the years.

Could that change, though, if they going to move that stadium, potentially that would be the opportunity.

No longer Arrowhead Stadium.

They could change a lot of that.

They could.

But then there's so many different levels of compromise that could be available here.

The Chiefs have already made the first one where they ban people from dressing up in Indian costumes at the stadium.

Personally, and from what I understand, I think there would be a strong constituency if the chiefs got rid of the chop.

Although how you could convince fans not to do it spontaneously is a whole different question.

But having the drum out there is another encouragement for that thing.

I know personally, and I haven't heard too many people object to the name Chiefs or the name of the stadium Arrowhead.

I will say I did get three emails about this very subject this week from our viewers.

That's only three.

By the way, if you were also counting on taking the streetcar to the stadium sometime soon, a huge bucket of cold water was poured over that plan this week.

After months of study, the city says extending the streetcar from the University of Kansas Hospital to the Truman Sports complex would be too prohibitively expensive.

Even taking the streetcar to Van Brunt, which is two miles short of Arrowhead, would cost $600 million, and it would take nearly a decade to line up the necessary federal funding to move forward.

But if the Royals are intent on moving downtown, does it make much sense to take the streetcar out to just Arrowhead Stadium for what it was at ten regular preseason games a year?

That's what it is.

Yeah, it'll be nice next year because they're playing a home game in Germany.

Is there a need for an East west streetcar line?

Clearly.

But that the question still remains, is the tax base there to support something like that?

And the answer there keeps coming back.

No, unless someone can come up with, I don't know, 600 million to maybe $750 million to to make that happen.

It's probably not going to happen.

I agree with Chris.

I mean, what we found out is the current line on Main Street, which is going to run from the riverfront to um, KC based on what they call the Transportation Development District, that mechanism for local funding.

And we got to remember this is the 600 million is like 300 million local 300 million from the feds.

If it worked the way it would.

It just has run out.

It's run its course.

I mean, it's hitting on the most valuable terrain in the city with the tax value that can be used for a TDD.

If you start looking at other lines, we got to start having a major discussion in this town and revisit either a citywide, a county wide or even a regional vote because the current local funding mechanism ain't going to work anymore.

And could that be part of this package when we're talking about these stadiums?

A Now you have something on the Kansas side, potentially a new chief stadium on the Kansas side, a downtown ballpark and streetcar in a regional sort of by state tax.

Look, I grew up outside of New York City in New Jersey.

Traveling on train is a way of life there.

And I loved every minute of it.

You know, you just jump on the train and go to the city.

You get to the city, you ride the train, you take it everywhere.

You'd have to worry about parking.

You have to worry about cars.

You have to worry about driving after you've had a couple of cocktails.

I would love for there to be a great mass transit system that goes out to Overland Park, goes out to Lawrence, goes out to Blue Springs, goes up to the airport.

I know I'm living a pipe dream on that one.

But I think the more mass transit that we can have, the more trains that we can have running around town to move people around, the better off it's going to be.

But I think if there's a bi state answer to this, you know, and we go back to obviously what happened with restoring Union Station, I think part of the reason why a bi state approach was successful when it came to Union Station back then was because I think people generally had a warm feeling about the facility while it needed tremendous levels of improvement and and rehabilitation.

But for a bi state answer to happen here, I think you're going to need kind of the same dynamic.

And that's where I think it gets a little challenging and.

It's going to be so expensive again, You're not going to do a streetcar out to village west.

It would take at least a light rail system if not piggybacking on a heavy rail.

And I know the county looked into trying to do some kind of heavy rail system in from the summit.

It just the numbers are enormous and our density is just not really there.

One of the things people are always talking about is why don't we get the streetcar or light rail out to the new airport?

It's just if it's $600 million to go five miles from Main Street to Van Brunt, it would be in the billions to get a line up to the airport.

And Clay Chastain did advocate for that exact line to the airport and he is running for mayor.

And we will see what happens in April when he's running against Quinton Lucas.

How did you celebrate Valentine's Day this week?

Did you get really romantic and take your main squeeze to check out the new bathrooms and parking garage at the airport?

KC officials picked Valentine's Day to launch their much publicized simulation test.

Nearly 12,000 people signed up to be pretend passengers for the day.

They picked about 700 of them.

One of them was Kevin Collison over here.

What did you experience?

Were there so many problems that the CIA officials have said, no, we're going to delay the opening of the.

No, I only problem is my flight to Tuscaloosa never showed up.

I got to the gate.

I checked my bag at the Delta counter, walked to the gate and no flight.

You know, so it's a bust in my mind.

Because there's a lot of there's a lot of nonstop stuff from Kansas City to Tuscaloosa.

They picked Tuscaloosa, we all know.

But on a on a much brighter note, you know, I had just a marvelous experience.

I think people are truly going to be delighted at this new airport, particularly in just comparison with with the current one.

And everybody I talked to was just ecstatic.

And one of the major things people were enthusiastic about was the artwork.

They spent 5.6 million.

It's the 1% for public art.

They did a marvelous job.

I mean, almost everywhere you turn, there's some really beautiful artwork.

It's all well done.

I mean, and none of this stuff is going to be people going, Oh, this is hideous.

It's it's just really makes the place attractive.

And again, my only concern, you know, we've gone from having a Starbucks.

Maybe when you get to the terminal here, they've got enough food and restaurants out there.

You could spend a good month and have and never have to eat at the same place.

I just hope they have the traffic to keep all these new restaurants and bars.

And also the staff.

And I know that's a big issue.

They've had three big hiring situations going on, but you didn't get to experience any of those because they're not finished yet.

And then I still see now that they're saying most will be open, not all, most will be open.

And there were issues with signage, people coming through there this week saying they didn't know where to go for certain things.

You know, it definitely I think that's why you do a dry run is to find out what people think, because after you were finished, you did a survey.

I my own particular little thing was when you walk into the ticketing area, I mean, it's a huge football link and it was hard to see where your airline was if you take a left or right.

So they needed a sign there.

But that's why you do these things.

How long was the walk from where you parked to where your gate was?

Because with the old airport, everybody loved it because you were so close.

Yeah, well, it was you know, I walked in, I had to go to Concourse B, which is the farthest one out.

It probably took maybe 10 minutes.

And of course, that's not going through security.

But the bridge is, you know, they've got moving sidewalks.

We're finally going to have something that we see in almost every other American airport of any size.

It's it's a nice experience.

It really is a nice experience.

And I know I sound like a homie here, but I think they did.

But you said 10 minutes from the parking lot.

That was 8 minutes longer than most people in Kansas said he wanted to go.

Well, I better get used to it.

You said you met Kevin, mentioned Starbucks, and actually, we're not going to have a Starbucks.

That will be one of the few airports in the country without them when we have other out-of-town visitors.

Isn't that the default option, just like a bathroom and that plug in for the cell phones that you can have a Starbucks to go to?

Hey, I'm a Dunkin guy, so I'm kind of.

So happy.

About that.

I'm thrilled about that.

And to kind of echo everything that Kevin said about it, I had a chance to go up in September what was about 90% of the way done and kind of do a dry run back then.

I was blown away by it.

These guys have done everything the right way, in my opinion, to look at this new terminal.

And if there are people out there that are still against it, you probably haven't flown in five years anyway and you don't know how things have been upgraded, but it allows us to just now to continue to increase flights so we can actually go places other than just Chicago and New York.

And thank goodness it'll be done in time for the NFL draft with the hundreds of thousands of people coming here.

I did see some observers, though, saying that it is functional and there's lots of inclusive amenities, but it is architecturally and an interesting.

Did they miss something?

You know, it's interesting.

We were just in New Orleans a month or two ago for a friend's wedding and they have a brand new airport.

I do think esthetically the New Orleans airport was a little better, but I think this one is very clean, very, very angular.

But the artwork sets it above.

I mean, you could almost make a joke and say, this is the Kansas City, Kansas City International Art Terminal, because it really does show a sophistication that I didn't even see in Indy or New Orleans, which I think are the closest airport sizes to what we've got here.

And you'll have a chance to experience it for yourself because it opens February 28th.

I know that we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of Bob Fescoe of Fescoe in the morning, weekdays from 6 to 10 on 610 sports and bringing you the news from 6 to 10 on 610 sports and bringing you the news every night on Channel nine Chris Ketz and available 24 every night on Channel nine Chris Ketz and available 24 seven online.

Kevin Collison of city scene KC and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well keep calm and carry on.