The Kansas City Royals journey to figure out where they are going to play when their Kauffman Stadium lease expires after the 2030 season has been quite the saga. Ever since John Sherman first brought up the possibility of a downtown stadium in 2021, the steady drumbeat of stadium talks has been a reality for people in Kansas City. Most people I talk to in person about the stadium are just ready for the Royals and Kansas City Chiefs to make their decision so we can stop talking about the process of selecting a location and start learning about whatever these new stadiums are going to be. I can’t blame anyone for holding that opinion, but we haven’t reached that point yet. So stop me if you have heard this one before – the Royals are approaching a deadline, this time from Kansas, about where they are planning to play in 2031.
Here’s a quick refresher: the Kansas Legislature approved a STAR bonds package that would pay for up to 70% of the costs of a new stadium. The legislature passed this bill in June of 2024, and the plan originally had a one-year deadline, with the option to extend that deadline for another year. In July of 2025, after the original deadline had passed, the Kansas Legislative Coordinating Council (LCC) passed an extension of that deadline. They chose an interesting approach to the extension. The extension is technically for another year, up to the end of June 2026, to have a package for the Chiefs and/or Royals ironed out that can be approved. But the LCC put in a six-month deadline for the teams to submit a proposal; they want the two teams to have presented a plan by December 31st, 2025.
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins recommended this six-month internal deadline, as he doesn’t want this bleeding into the 2026 session, which starts in early January. Hawkins told Tim Carpenter of the Missouri Independent:
“We have had this law out there for a year now and each team has had a year to come to some type of conclusion,” Hawkins said. “Neither team has and quite frankly for the last month and a half, I have been very consistent across the board saying, ‘Let’s get it done.’ ”
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, who chairs the LCC, also expects to hear from the team before the end of the year. He told Jonathan Katz of Fox4:
“I am anticipating being presented with a proposal from the Department of Commerce and the team either at my late November or early December LCC Meeting,” Masterson continued. “That’s what I’m expecting.”
The last LCC meeting was on November 5, 2025, and right now they do not have another one on the schedule, although they could call another meeting between now and the end of the year. If they call another meeting, it will presumably be about the stadium proposals and will have more public attention than these meetings usually attract.
The Royals have been quiet since they missed their stated objective of a “mid-year” announcement of where they were going to play in the future. The past few months have been a relatively quiet time as far as stadium news goes. There have been no leaks, at least that I have seen, about the progress on the potential Aspiria location. We know that the Royals are continuing to engage in discussions with North Kansas City about a potential stadium; NKC Mayor Jesse Smith described the discussions as “substantial.” There has been no news about Jackson County being more amenable to a deal now that Frank White is out as County Executive, but presumably the Royals have communicated with the new leadership.
We do know more about what the Chiefs are thinking. They have put out a request for proposals from firms that would be able to design a new stadium in Wyandotte County. This does not mean that they are for sure going to Kansas, but we do know that they are continuing to explore that possibility. At this point, however, I would be somewhat surprised if the LCC does not meet this month to discuss a proposal from the Chiefs, since they appear to be on schedule to make that happen. Whether the Royals are also submitting a proposal on time, I feel much less sure about.
One final thought about either the Chiefs or the Royals moving to Kansas: I wonder if the teams are monitoring the situation the American Royal find themselves in, if that will have any influence on either team making the jump across State Line Road. The AR began construction on its project in 2023, then had to pause early this year to authorize more STAR bond sales. They were approved to sell more in April of this year, but construction has remained paused while the American Royal and Wyandotte figure out the details and logistics on how to get these bonds on the market. American Royal president Jackie McClaskey now hopes that the bonds will go on sale in early 2026, although that is if everything goes according to plan.
From the outside looking in, the American Royal construction process has already been slow, and there are no guarantees that there won’t be future delays. The delays to the bond sale mean neither team has seen how easily the AR and Wyandotte can sell the $155 million in STAR bonds, or if the market will be cool on the project. This may not matter to either team, but both are on a deadline and the slow moving nature of the AR project would make me nervous if I was in Brooks Sherman’s position.
Deadlines have been more like suggestions for the Royals throughout the stadium process, so maybe this one with Kansas will be no different. It’s certainly possible the team will miss the Kansas internal deadline of December 31, and the LCC will move it back again; they have that option. Speaker Hawkins, however, speaks for most of us when he implores, “let’s get it done.”