Rosenblatt Stadium

Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium is a baseball stadium in Omaha, Nebraska. It serves as the home of both the minor league Omaha Royals and the annual NCAA Division I College World Series.

Omaha Municipal Stadium was built in 1947, ready to host the single-A Omaha Cardinals for the 1948 season. The St. Louis Cardinals farm team was the first professional baseball team to call Omaha its home. During the next few years Rosenblatt would see several different teams play there. In 1969, the Kansas City Royals decided to move their triple-A franchise here, and it plays in Rosenblatt to the present day.

In 1964, the stadium was renamed to honor former Omaha mayor Johnny Rosenblatt, who was instrumental in bringing professional baseball as well as the College World Series to Omaha.

The success of the CWS has been tremendous; however, the high capacity leaves the Royals struggling to fill it for its regular season games. There has been discussion since at least 2003 of building a separate venue for the Omaha Royals, which may also be shared by Creighton University and/or the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Alan Stein, the President and half owner of the Omaha Royals said he would put at least $10 million into a 7,500 seat new stadium for the Royals. He said a 30,000 seat CWS stadium downtown with removable seats down to 12,000 will still not be an intimate diamond. The Royals are willing to build this kind of stadium because they say a smaller stadium would double annual attendance up to 500,000 – 600,000. That increase is unlikely at either Rosenblatt or a large downtown stadium says Stein.

The Royals have named multiple other cities who have talked to them about going there. Stein says their goal is to stay in Omaha, but they have to make a business decision. So he has pushed for a two-stadium solution, a $60-$80 million Rosenblatt renovation for the CWS and an intimate $25 million downtown ballpark for the Royals and possibly Creighton. The total cost would be much less the one big proposed downtown stadium at a cost of at least $140 million. Everyone would get what they need and both venues would be attracting more fans as the CWS is already increasing every year.

If the Royals have a stadium downtown than, Mayor Fahey said Rosenblatt would continue with the CWS and host other special events (such as concerts, festivals, championship high school games, community events and much more, as it used to in the past. The Mayor Mike also said that the Royals are necessary to justify stadium costs.

Efforts to Save Rosenblatt Stadium

From May 2007 to May 2008 a grassroots organization, called Save Rosenblatt began proactive efforts to save Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium for the College World Series. In “opposing the demise of” Rosenblatt, the group gathered petition signatures, held rallies, placed billboards, shot & aired a TV commercial with legendary actor and baseball fan Kevin Costner, and had architectural plans designed for a Rosenblatt renovation. Also, the community leaders who helped guided this citizen`s initiative attempted communications with Omaha Mayor, Mike Fahey and NCAA Director of baseball and football, Dennis Poppe in hopes to express the desires of many Rosenblatt/CWS fans.

The guiding committee and the many petition signers (over 17,000 as of March 1, 2008) believed that Rosenblatt Stadium should be retained and enhanced. They said that the CWS event and the City of Omaha will be better served by one of the current proposals for a remodeled Rosenblatt and modified area around the stadium. Between June 2007 and February 2008, at least 12 public polls by different media outlets showed strong opposition to the idea of a new stadium – from a low of 71% to a high of 86%. In early March 2008, on a Pro-new stadium website, a 13th poll reached as high as 70%+ in opposition to the proposed new stadium.

On February 27, 2008, after nearly five months of private meetings, Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey and his stadium committee made public their much anticipated yet very controversial $140+ million recommendation for a new downtown stadium. The Mayor and this privately formed committee have used an undisclosed amount out of the nearly $1.0 million of public and private planning funds specifically for financing a strategic campaign to sell their desired concept to the public.

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