Normally, stadium situations are outside our purview. But the upcoming vote on Arrowhead Stadium renovations — a ballot measure that centers around the Royals’ hopes of securing public funding for a stadium in downtown Kansas City — does provide a bit more intrigue due to recent comments made by Chiefs president Mark Donovan.
While the Royals are the only team that would change venues if the measure — a sales-tax extension set to be voted on Tuesday in Jackson County (Missouri) — passes, the Chiefs have an $800MM renovation package on the ballot. Clark Hunt has said the team will contribute $300MM to this goal. Work would not begin until 2027, after the 2026 World Cup comes to Arrowhead Stadium.
A previous round of Arrowhead renovations wrapped before the 2010 season, but the Chiefs have sent their franchise centerpieces — Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce — out in support via a recent ad that also includes All-Star catcher Salvador Perez and other Royals stumping for the measure to pass. When asked what would happen if it failed, Donovan put the prospect of the Chiefs leaving Kansas City on the table.
“I think they would have to include leaving Kansas City,” Donovan said when asked (via KSHB’s Kevin Holmes) about the team’s future related to the vote. “But our goal here is, we want to stay here. And we’re willing to accept a deal for the county to actually stay here.”
The Chiefs’ Kansas City stay predates the Royals, an expansion team that began play in 1969. The Chiefs relocated from Dallas to Kansas City following the 1962 season, leaving Texas shortly after winning the AFL championship. Clark Hunt’s father, Lamar, founded the franchise and orchestrated the relocation. The Chiefs moved into Arrowhead Stadium in 1972.
Beginning as the Dallas Texans, the franchise rebranded as the Chiefs. While the Chiefs appeared in two Super Bowls in the 1960s, winning Super Bowl IV, they drifted well off the contender radar for most of the next two decades before a run of near-misses defined the team during the 1990s and the early part of this century. The Reid-Mahomes-Kelce trio changed the team’s fortunes, and the Chiefs recently joined only the Patriots and Cowboys as teams to win three Super Bowls in a five-year span.
Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas has endorsed the measure, which Bloomberg.com notes calls for a tax that would raise nearly $2 billion in public funds. Should the Royals leave their Kauffman Stadium headquarters, located along Interstate 70 east of downtown Kansas City, the Chiefs would expand their footprint via these proposed renovations.
“We have a building that will be 60 years old at the end of the lease,” Hunt said, via KCTV5’s Mark Poulose. “We only have seven years left on our lease. Stadium projects take many years to develop. I think it goes without saying, we’ll have to evaluate our options, but at this point, we are very focused on Tuesday.”
The Chiefs and Royals’ lease at the Truman Sports Complex runs through 2031. Hunt and Donovan’s comments would affect a potential Kansas City departure in 2032. An early poll from the Remington Research Group (via KSHB) placed this vote as close, with a 47-46 advantage to the measure passing. Donovan said (via the Sports Business Journal’s Ben Fischer) he is cautiously optimistic the vote will go in the team’s favor.
This certainly could be posturing on the Chiefs’ part, but we have obviously seen these situations devolve into exits. Rumblings about the recent Rams, Raiders and Chargers’ relocations involved near-future moves. The Chargers bolted San Diego for Los Angeles not long after their vote to move into a downtown stadium failed. A potential Chiefs departure not coming to a head for more than five years makes it more of a back-burner issue, but this vote does bring intrigue — especially considering the franchise’s recent success — and will be worth monitoring Tuesday.
Sadly the voters will pass this ridiculous measure to give more money to billionaires. Hmm I wonder how much the governor has received in campaign funds.
Same thing happened in Nashville. We have a major traffic issue that’s getting closer to gridlock every day and instead of approving a light rail project to offer relief, they decide we need a multi billion dollar covered stadium instead. In a location that absolutely doesn’t need a covered stadium. Everybody wants to host a fu$king Super Bowl.
Jags are in the same boat. ‘Give us a billion or we’re leaving.’.
The team is owned by a billionaire oil heir. He can pay for it himself! Don’t let the door hit you on the way our. I’ll just watch you on the tv…..
Easy solution : if you want taxpayers to fund your building, give taxpayers a % of your profits.
They do…it’s called sales tax
And property tax.
And personal income tax.
And payroll tax and so much more. The only time I can recall that a team wanted money from a state or city gov they didn’t pay taxes to was with Tepper trying to get South Carolina to pay for a practice facility when the stadium and team are located in North Carolina.
Clark Hunt: Hey we need $800 million, we are willing to put up $300 million, we need you to cover the rest.
Jackson County: Aren’t you a billionaire?
Clark Hunt: Yeah but why should I spend my money on my team?
Pay for our stadium or well have to leave where some other saps will
The city of St. Louis and state of Missouri combined to offer the Rams $350 million, if I recall, only for Korenke to say that it wasn’t enough and leave for L.A….and spend over $5.5 billion of his and the NFL’s money in building SoFi. It was especially insulting because Goodell wagged his finger at the Missouri proposal for asking for another $100 million over their initial proposal, in addition to providing other public funds and breaks to help. Goodell said that it was too much to guarantee, and sent a memo to all teams calling their proposal “inadequate”, despite them picking a site, having a sponsor, and spending approximately $11 million on developing proposals.
When Kroenke built his L.A. stadium, though, the NFL had no problem giving him more than that, plus another extra $500 million in loans when the costs grew (from $1.86 billion, his proposed cost when trying to wrangle the votes for approval, to over $5.5 billion). The NFL also turned around and offered $100 million to the Chargers and Raiders to stay. Clearly, despite their mewling, $100 million is easy money to the owners. And, after all of this and the grandstanding and $790 million settlement paid to the city/state (a payment that Kroenke tried to stick the league with) from the Rams’ shenanigans in moving…Kroenke is seeking tax breaks in California.
Let Clark Hunt consider all of this before shaking down his fans for supporting him to three Superbowls. People today may pay, but eventually, there may come a time when they won’t.
Don’t forget that Mark Davis is the ‘poorest billionaire’ on earth and had both the NFL and Vegas fund his stadium.
Spot on. Which is why I don’t give the NFL one penny of my money. Everything they do is with the idea of taking every cent out of fan’s pockets as possible, and making the NFL and it’s owners richer.
with the idea of taking every cent out of fan’s pockets as possible
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Wow! The local diner and the local pub serve me at no markup.
Just to give you my own personal insight, the crew that just did some work on my house did a fine job, and charged me real money. The stuff purchased from the Lowe’s, HD, and the local hardware store, charged me real money.
And when I go to work, I charge real money.
Your local diner isn’t worth billions of dollars, and won’t sue you for saying the word Superbowl. I’m sure they aren’t charging $50K for a seat license to sit down either lol
And the local diner has standard prices for their food and drinks, not 300% markup on a coke & burger.
And NFL network studios are on site there in LA. Seems a bit like conflict of interest, but what do I know
There aren’t enough viable places to go for all of the extortion of cities that takes place. Open air stadiums might get 20 uses per year depending upon geography, while enclosed can get 50-100 depending upon the attractive nature of the city.
The league and teams should fund their own crap. To make matters worse, is that we now see the life of a stadium/ballpark/arena to be around 20-25 years and it is considered obsolete.
Sure, it’s tourists that get stuck with most of the taxes on hotels and rental cars, but not exclusively.
KC is 60 years old. I agree that some of this is ridiculous, but these matters should be sorted out in a contract before the first dime is paid.
Goodell’s fantasy of expanding the NFL into foreign markets is within the PFR purview so why would stadium situations not be?
I get that Reid, Mahomes and Kelce would be out there trying to drum up support for stadium renovations but where is Taylor Swift? I thought she was the Chiefs #1 superfan.
Maybe Taylor could fund it…?
A private sports franchise should NEVER get public funding for their stadiums unless they are willing to provide the same percentage of revenue it generates back to the public in perpetuity.
The stadium is owned by the county and has a lease with the chiefs. Therefore should be funding any renovations as they are the landlords. I hope the tax doesn’t pass so they can move to the Kansas side closer to me, but it would be stupid to not pass a tax that is already in effect. The people of Jackson county have been paying this same tax since 2006. It’s basically just to renew the tax. This public funding is what is needed to keep them where they are at and help generate the county and cities a lot of revenue for them.
The Kansas City Star has called for a “no” vote on the stadium and for good reason. The Chiefs are in their most successful period in their history, winning 3 of the last 5 Super Bowls, 2 of them back-to-back. Yet the Chiefs want to hold up the populace for a government-funded sportsball palace with all the bells and whistles.
And this is an NFL club whose website banner brags of their being “World Champions”. (Murica, F#&k Yeah!) FIFA will not look too highly on that since GEHA Field at Arrowhead will host matches in the 2026 World Cup.
(The reference to GEHA Field is correct; that is the actual name of the Chiefs’ current stadium.)
Arrowhead Stadium is one of the best looking venues in the league, I see no need for a new stadium, especially on the taxpayers dime. I’m sure the Chiefs have been a major source of revenue for the NFL the last few years, so the NFL should fund these stadiums or make the cities the owners, much like Green Bay so they can provide direct income for the cities instead of making the rich owners richer.
The thing that people forget about is the county where the vote is taking place is the landlords. Chiefs are the tenants and should be treated as such. There isn’t a tax increase if passed just the same tax that was there from 2006.
The “Landlord-tenant” Agreement for a stadium/team is not the same as other situations. Often the team leases for a very minor amount, sufficient to create a contract, I have read about past examples being $1/yr.
Well chiefs heading to Kansas and royals heading to Clay County