Missouri governor says new public aid plan in the works for Chiefs, Royals stadiums
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said Thursday he expects the state to have a relief plan in place by the end of the year to prevent the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from being lured across state lines to new stadiums in Kansas.
Missouri’s renewed efforts are coming after Kansas approved a plan Last week, this would finance up to 70% of the costs of new stadiums for professional soccer and baseball teams.
“We’re going to make sure we put the best business deal on the line,” Parson told reporters as he presented the Chiefs’ two most recent Super Bowl trophies at the Capitol, where fans lined up for photos.
“Look, I can’t blame Kansas for trying,” Parson added. “You know, if I was probably in there, I’d do the same thing. But at the end of the day, we’re going to be competitive.”
The Chiefs and Royals have played in adjacent stadiums built in eastern Kansas City for more than 50 years, drawing fans from both states in the divided metropolitan area. Their stadium leases expire in 2031. But Royals owner John Sherman has said the team will no longer play in Kauffman Stadium after the 2030 season, expressing a preference for a new stadium downtown.
Questions about the future of the teams increased after Jackson County, Missouri, voters rejected in April a sales tax that could have helped finance a $2 billion-plus downtown stadium district for the Royals and an $800 million renovation of the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium.
The tax plan faced several headwinds. Some Royals fans favored the team’s current site. Others opposed the tax. And still others were concerned about the new stadium plans, which changed just weeks before the vote.
The emergence of Kansas as an alternative raised the stakes for Missouri officials and repeated a common pattern among professional sports teams that often use one site against another in an effort to secure the largest government subsidies for new or improved stadiums.
Sports teams strive for a new wave of stadium construction in the US, going beyond basic repairs to generate new revenue from luxury suites, restaurants, shops and other developments around their stadiums. On Tuesday, the city of Jacksonville, Florida, has approved a $1.25 billion stadium renovation plan for the NFL Jaguars, with the cost split between the city and the team.
Many economists argue that while stadiums can increase tax revenues in their immediate vicinity, they tend to draw consumer spending away from other entertainment and rarely generate enough new economic activity to offset all government subsidies.
Parson said that “the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals are big business,” comparing them to major companies that have received government assistance, such as Boeing, Ford and General Motors. But he added that any deal “must work out on paper, and it will be beneficial to Missouri taxpayers.”
“I think by the end of this year we’ll have something ready” to propose for the stadiums, Parson said.
Missouri’s still-undefined plan will likely require legislative approval, but Parson said he does not expect to call a special legislative session before his term ends in January. That means any plan developed by Parson’s administration in collaboration with Kansas City-area officials will also need the support of the next governor and a new set of lawmakers.
Now that Kansas has passed a funding bill, discussions between the sports teams and the Kansas Department of Commerce could begin at any time, but the agency does not yet have a timeline for finalizing a deal, spokesman Patrick Lowry said Thursday.
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Associated Press writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.