KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Monarchs are back — sort of.
New owners of the Kansas City T-Bones baseball club in Kansas City, Kan., announced Thursday morning that the team will adopt the name of Kansas City's storied Negro Leagues team beginning this season.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which owns rights to the Monarchs name, has entered into a long-term licensing agreement with the T-Bones. Beginning Thursday, the minor league team will be known as the Kansas City Monarchs Baseball Club. Officials hope the rebranding will bring more attention to both to the museum and to the beleaguered ball club in western Wyandotte County.
"It's exciting to see the Monarchs play again," said Bob Kendrick, president of the museum, located in Kansas City's 18th & Vine historic jazz district.
Maintaining modern relevance is a central challenge for any history museum, he said. It's what drives attention, donations and ultimately survival.
When teams like the Kansas City Royals sport throwback Monarchs jerseys, interest in the Negro Leagues and the museum generally ticks up. And Kendrick hopes the deal with the T-Bones will do the same .
"Negro Leagues baseball hasn't been played in 61 years. So how do you keep it relevant?" he said. "And what I instantly saw was an opportunity for relevancy."
There's also an opportunity for revenue.
The museum has for years offered licensing agreements for the Monarchs and other Negro Leagues teams. It's how companies like Charlie Hustle sell shirts with the team's name and logo today.
But that has been a declining part of the museum's revenue in recent years.
The museum reported royalty revenue of just above $61,000 in its 2018 IRS filings, which showed total expenses of about $2 million. Kendrick said that revenue stream fell to about $44,000 in the 2020 fiscal year, which included the beginning of the pandemic.
Details of the licensing agreement with the T-Bones were not disclosed, but Kendrick said the deal should provide a sustainable revenue stream for the nonprofit museum through ongoing tickets and merchandise sales.
Kendrick also hopes the rebranding will help bring the story of the Monarchs to more people in Kansas City.
The Monarchs were the longest running franchise in America's Negro Leagues. And the franchise was among the most successful, with legends such as Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson and Buck O'Neil sporting Monarchs jerseys at times.
But the museum, which opened in 1990, aims at telling the broader story of the Negro Leagues — not just the Monarchs — to a national audience. As part of the agreement with the T-Bones, the museum will bring an exhibit to the T-Bones stadium and a traveling exhibit to away games.
Kendrick says he could have filled the 10,000-square-foot museum with just the history of Kansas City's Monarchs, which disbanded in 1965 after the extinction of the Negro Leagues.
"It is that prolific," he said. "You're talking about a 40-plus-year history of one of the greatest baseball franchises not just in Black baseball history, but in baseball history."
For the T-Bones, the rebranding is the latest in owner Mark Brandmeyer's work of repositioning the independent league team.
He said the name change will help bring the story of the Monarchs to life.
"And frankly it makes the game more interesting," he said. "Because the better the stories are, the more people are going to have interest in the team."
His ownership group, called Max Fun LLC, recently bought the T-Bones franchise from the Ehlert family after it struggled financially for years.
In October 2019, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, padlocked the stadium after owners racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent and utility bills.
The UG owns the stadium and has spent millions on stadium improvements and financial bailouts of the team in recent years.
Brandmeyer, a local business owner, has pledged to reinvest in the team and its stadium, located near Village West.
Aside from renewing local interest, he said the Monarchs brand should help the team recruit talent.
"I'm not a minor league baseball player," he said. "But I've got to think if I had the opportunity to play for the Monarchs or just any other team out there, the Monarchs would go to the top of my list."
As part of the revival of the T-Bones, the new owner hopes to create a more active ballpark that doesn't necessarily revolve around the action on the field. Before the pandemic, he announced plans to add new bars, a bourbon and cigar deck, a craft beer garden, a family tailgate tent and eight pickleball courts just beyond the outfield.
Brandmeyer envisions the stadium to become a major destination for corporate, church and other group outings. He said that work will be an "ongoing process."
But for now, he's looking forward to the 2021 season opener in mid-May. It will be his first at the helm, as the pandemic caused the T-Bones to skip last year's season.
And he will field a team called the Kansas City Monarchs.
"You've got to think when those pinstripes hit the field for the first time everyone's going to get goosebumps," he said.
