Venue News & Notes: All-Star Game Heads to Kansas City

The Kansas City Royals have been selected to host the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig made the announcement this week, making good on the promise he made in 2006 that Kauffman Stadium would get to host the midsummer classic in the near future if upgrades were made to the venue. Jackson County, MO, taxpayers passed a $275 million referendum that year, and the renovations were finally completed in 2009. Kansas City, which originally became a major-league city with the relocation of the Athletics from Philadelphia in 1955, hosted the first of two All-Star games back in 1960 at the old Municipal Stadium…

…Three sports-arena proposals were knocked out as quietly as a losing team in a lopsided game this week. All but one Clark County, NV, commissioner stood firm on rejecting any arena plan that would require public money, dooming the three arenas proposed on or near the Las Vegas Strip. Commissioners refused to take any action to aid the applicants, including putting an advisory question on the November ballot to gauge the public’s interest in an arena. The three proposals would have required some subsidy for building a 20,000-seat arena for professional basketball, hockey, and other events…

…New York Jets fans say they like the four scoreboards and accessible seats at the New Meadowlands Stadium. Twelve thousand fans watched as the Jets practiced for the first time at the new stadium this week. Brian Hoffman of Long Island said, “There isn’t a bad seat in the house,” after sitting in both the upper and lower decks. Even though the lower deck was only half full, defensive end Shaun Ellis says it sounded like a sold-out game. Ellis says other teams will feel “smothered” when they come in…

…FIFA and South Africa’s World Cup organizers went on the defensive this week about security issues at five World Cup stadiums caused by a stewards’ strike over low pay. The spokesmen for FIFA and the organizing committee declined to address the problems at their daily news briefing, referring all questions to police. “We have nothing further to say about the security issue. Please call the police,” South Africa organizers spokesman Rich Mkhondo said. “They are able to answer all security-related matters. All. Not me…”

…Three weeks ago, an announcement was made that several top players in professional tennis had agreed to play in a special event at Cowboys Stadium on July 10. This week, the team released a statement saying the Cowboys Tennis Classic has been postponed. No reason was given for the postponement, and a future date has not been set. The event was to feature two matches, both in a best-of-three-sets format. The matches were to feature Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Andy Roddick, and John Isner.