Buyers beware: Hidden fees at Riverfront Stadium tack an extra 8% on every purchase

Wichita baseball fans taking in the first weekend of action at Riverfront Stadium have been confronted with an extra 8% charge on all purchases.

The hidden fee, tacked on by Wichita Wind Surge owners, applies to merchandise, food and beverages, and tickets.

Jordan Kobritz, CEO of the Wind Surge, said the fees are legitimate and will be used to help the team fund development around the ballpark.

The added fee and higher sales tax on purchases at the ballpark add 18.26% to the listed price.

Based on a tip from a reader, an Eagle reporter confirmed the fee is hidden by purchasing a T-shirt and baseball hat from the team store Thursday afternoon.

The team store does not include any signs warning of the added fee, as of Friday afternoon. It was not disclosed until after the sale was final, on the receipt. There’s no way to get your money back. The team store does not give refunds.

The hat, a Tumba Vacas promotional trucker hat, had a price tag of $28. The shirt, a black Tumba Vacas T-shirt, had a listed sales price of $32.

On top of that $60 base price, the Wind Surge added an 8% ($4.80) ballpark development fee. Then, a 9.5% sales tax was calculated based on the listed price and the added fee, bringing the total to $70.96.

The fee came as a surprise to city officials. The city paid for the stadium and owns it, but all sales within the ballpark are managed by the Wind Surge.

“This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Mayor Brandon Whipple said Thursday afternoon. “It sounds to me like something Derek Schmidt’s office should be looking into as a consumer protection issue.”

A Kansas Attorney General’s Office spokesperson declined to comment on the legality of the hidden fee, saying the agency “cannot provide counsel, legal advice or research to private citizens, businesses or groups.”

Consumers who think their rights have been violated can file a consumer complaint form with the Sedgwick County district attorney, the spokesperson noted.

“That is not the agreement we approved,” said City Council member Jeff Blubaugh, who represents the ballpark district. “This sounds a little bit like double taxation. The city already paid for the stadium, so I don’t understand where this money is actually going.”

“I’m disappointed as it appears the Wind Surge felt it necessary to pass increased costs off to their fans and make it look like a city mandated fee, which it is not,” City Council member Bryan Frye said.

“The city does not require a ‘ballpark development fee,’ to be collected by the Wind Surge,” Frye said. “Those are not our fees.”

“That is crazy,” City Council member Maggie Ballard said. “This makes me really nervous because we’re doing all of this riverfront development, offices, hotels, et cetera. If we’re throwing an 18% tax on everything, that’s horrible.”

Ballard, who has a young son she plans to take to Wind Surge games, said the hidden fee is making her reconsider.

“It’s a lot of money to go the ballpark anyways,” Ballard said. “It’s so expensive it’s getting to the point where you might as well go to a Royals game for how much you end up spending.”

The Wind Surge have dealt with a series of setbacks since Wichita built a stadium to lure the Triple-A team from New Orleans formerly known as the Baby Cakes.

Its inaugural season in 2020 was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team dropped from Triple-A to Double-A as part of a Minor League Baseball realignment that changed the team’s affiliation from the Miami Marlins to the Minnesota Twins.

The team’s general partner, Lou Schwechheimer, died of COVID in 2020.

Kobritz, CEO of the Wind Surge, said all of the “Ballpark Development Fee” goes back to the team to spend as it sees fit. It will apply to all apparel, concessions and individual tickets. It does not apply to season or group tickets.

Kobritz said the team plans to have signs posted at the stadium.

“There is a sign — well, they may not have gotten it applied yet,” he said Thursday afternoon. “We haven’t really gotten started yet: signs that are set up for the sales tax, the CID and the ballpark development fee.

“If you’re telling me they’re not there, that tells me they didn’t come back from the sign manufacturer here,” Kobritz said. “We’ve got the sign, but we’re not going to just print out a piece of paper and put it up there in Scotch Tape. That’s all, so we sent it out to get it professionally designed on some vinyl.”

“They will be displayed in every retail locations — so in the merch store, in the concession stand and the ticket office,” he said.

The city has committed northward of $100 million on the ballpark, surrounding development and infrastructure to support the stadium. All sales tax revenue at the stadium goes to pay off $42 million in STAR bonds issued for the stadium. An added 2% CID tax also pays down debt on Riverfront Stadium.

The City Council also approved a development agreement that sold 4.5 acres of riverfront property to the Wind Surge owners for $1 an acre in exchange for future commercial development by the team.

Kobritz said the added development fees will offset the team’s investment in the surrounding area.

“We actually invested close to $10 million, so this ballpark development fee is designed to recoup some of that, obviously over a period of time,” he said. “We are in the process of beginning the development around the ballpark, and we will have tens of millions of dollars of expenses associated with that, and so that fee will help [offset] some of those costs as well.”

The fee was not approved by the city council or the state government.

“It’s private. We didn’t need any approval,” Kobritz said. “I think people are used to paying fees in this environment.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 6:02 PM.