The future of the Chiefs and Royals has been up in the air for a while.
The teams currently play professional football and baseball in side-by-side stadiums in eastern Kansas City in Jackson County, Missouri, under leases that run until January 2031.
Jackson County voters last year turned down a sales tax extension that would have helped finance a $2 billion ballpark district for the Royals in downtown Kansas City and an $800 million renovation of the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium.
That prompted Kansas lawmakers last year to authorize bonds for up to 70% of the cost of new stadiums in their state.
Missouri’s counterproposal would authorize bonds for up to 50% of the cost of stadium projects while also providing up to $50 million of tax credits to go with unspecified support from local governments.
While testifying Tuesday to a Senate committee, Chiefs lobbyist Rich AuBuchon described the Missouri offer as “legitimate” and “competitive.” If the Chiefs stay in Missouri, he said they likely would begin a $1.15 billion plan to renovate Arrowhead Stadium and upgrade the team’s practice facilities in either 2027 or 2028. It would take three years to complete.
AuBuchon pointed to other recent publicly financed stadium projects in Baltimore, New Orleans, Nashville and Buffalo, New York.
“Throughout the country states are funding stadiums. They are a big economic development. They are a big business,” AuBuchon said.
However, many economists contend public funding for stadiums isn’t worth it, because sports tend to divert discretionary spending away from other forms of entertainment rather than generate new income.
“What the teams are doing is playing Kansas and Missouri against each other,” said Patrick Tuohey, senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a free-market think tank whose St. Louis headquarters got hit by the tornado.
“When cities and states do this, they hollow out their tax base for the benefit of wealthy billionaire team owners … they lose the ability to provide public safety, basic services,” Tuohey said.
Royals lobbyist Jewell Patek said that even with the state incentives, a planned stadium district likely would need voter approval for local tax incentives in either Jackson or Clay counties, which couldn’t happen until later this year.
He made no guarantee the Royals would pick Missouri over Kansas, but Patek added: “We love the community, we love the state … we think this is a step in the right direction for the state of Missouri.”
Copyright 2025 by The Associated Press