KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – The Royals introduced a new president of business operations Monday as the team continues their push to build a new stadium.
The club hired Cullen Maxey as president of business operations and moved Brooks Sherman to president of real estate and development as part of the organizational restructuring.
“Over the next five to 10 years, we will still be a baseball club and hopefully aspiring to do great things for our fans,” Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman said. “But we’ll also have built a stadium, which is a very, very significant project. Really, Brooks’ role is to go kind of build out the team to do that. When that’s built, he’ll turn it over to Cullen for operations, but then to try to create a mixed-use development around it.”
Maxey joins the Royals after two decades with the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he helped lead multiple stadium projects, including planning and construction of the Diamondbacks’ $200 million Salt River Fields Complex.
“Change is hard. People are going to be on both sides of that. We understand that,” Maxey said of the stadium project. “That means you need to have a lot of trust in the leaders that are creating that change, that they’re doing it for the right reasons. And I know we are.”
The current lease at Kauffman Stadium expires in 2030. Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman said Monday the team had no timeline updates to share.
“These are complex, multi-jurisdiction, public-private partnerships,” John Sherman said. “They always take longer than any of us hope.”
“Rarely do you have an opportunity to build a stadium,” Maxey said. “What will be built, the vision — if even half of that is delivered is something that’s going to stick forever.”
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