A Missouri mayor says a fight over jobs is back on. Things to know about Kansas wooing the Chiefs

TOPEKA, Kan. — A plan in Kansas to lure Kansas City’s two major league sports franchises from Missouri has prompted the mayor of their hometown to declare that it ends a five-year-old agreement between the states not to take each other’s jobs .

The Kansas Legislature approved it a value to allow the state to issue bonds to help the economy Super Bowl champion Chiefs and Major League Baseball’s Royals are paying for new stadiums in Kansas. It goes next to Governor Laura Kelly.

Here are a few things to know about the two-state matchup for the teams.

Although Kelly has not formally committed to signing the stadium financing bill, she issued a positive statement Tuesday, saying Kansas could become “a professional sports powerhouse.” If she signs it, as many lawmakers expect, it would go into effect July 1.

Secretary of Commerce Lt. Gov. David Toland is said to be negotiating a plan for a new stadium with one or both teams. Kelly and eight top legislative leaders would have to approve any deal with a vote at a public meeting.

A deal would draw the boundaries of one district around a stadium and possibly another district around a separate practice facility, and new state sales and alcohol tax revenue generated by stores, restaurants, bars and hotels in that district would pay off the bonds over 30 years .

The city and county also could pledge tax revenue, but are not required to do so, and the state could also use revenue from sports betting and state lottery ticket sales to support bonds.

The bonds could cover up to 70% of the cost of the new stadiums, although the plan’s proponents do not expect that, assuming that two stadiums together could cost $4 billion.

The Kansas-Missouri border splits the 2.3 million-resident Kansas City area, and there are both Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. Much of the border lies in the middle of State Line Road, and about 60% of the area’s residents live on the Missouri side.

A feud between the two states has been around for generations and recently saw each state burn tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to attract existing businesses across the border. Officials on both sides came to view the contest as expensive and wasteful, and in 2019 Kelly, a Democrat, and Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, agreed signed a ceasefire.

Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, Missouri told reporters that Kansas’ bid for the Chiefs and Royals has reignited the economic “border war.”

“I really believe that in the long run we are one place and it will be better if we work together,” he said at a press conference.

But Kelly disagrees that the states’ truce has been violated, telling reporters this week that before the agreement, “We never discussed the teams.”

Kansas lawmakers acted after voters sided with Missouri April declined to extend a local sales tax for maintaining the complex with the teams’ adjacent stadiums. Many Kansas lawmakers worried that if they didn’t act, the teams would leave the area altogether, citing Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Nashville.

Several economists who have studied professional sports doubted whether moving would make financial sense for either team, especially the Chiefs, who have a rabid fan base that is difficult to quickly build elsewhere. Additionally, after professional football’s Rams moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles nearly a decade ago, the team’s owner and the National Football League decided paid $790 million to settle a lawsuit brought by St. Louis interests.

But Kansas lawmakers noted that the Royals’ predecessor, the Athletics, moved to Oakland, California, in 1968 and now plans to move to Las Vegas. Kansas City lost major league professional teams to other cities in the 1970s and 1980s, and the Chiefs came to Kansas City in 1963 after starting out as the Dallas Texans four years earlier.

“The state of Missouri is known for losing professional teams,” state Rep. Sean Tarwater of Kansas, a Kansas City-area Republican who helped push for the stadium bill.

Missouri officials have pledged to do whatever it takes to keep the Chiefs and Royals in their state, but have not outlined any specific proposals. Lucas saw the April vote as a sign that area residents wanted officials to discuss options other than extending the sales tax.

Like their counterparts in Kansas, Missouri lawmakers have completed their annual regular session, but they will meet again on September 11 to discuss Parson vetoes.

Supporters of Kansas’ bid for the teams said it could prompt an aggressive response from Missouri — adding that if the teams get offers they like and choose to stay there, they will still be able to in the Kansas City area.

Lucas said the teams now have “exceptional influence.”

The lease for the complex that includes the Chiefs’ and Royals’ existing stadiums runs until January 2031, but the teams have said they must plan renovations or new stadiums years in advance to be ready on time. Both suggested that even seven years later, the time for a decision is short.

Supporters of the Kansas bid said such comments justified action Tuesday, during a one-day special session that Kelly called think tax cuts after lawmakers postponed their regular annual session on May 1. Some critics argued that lawmakers should have waited until their 2025 regular session began in January so a plan could be properly vetted.

But Parson and Lucas have said the battle for the teams is only in the “first quarter,” using a football metaphor.

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Associated Press writers Summer Ballentine, in Columbia, Missouri, and Jim Salter, in O’Fallon, Missouri, also contributed to this story.