Kirby Lee-USA Today Sports
As the Royals and the Chiefs continue mulling options for the futures of their stadiums, Kansas City-area business leaders say they don’t care which side of the state line the teams end up on — as long as they stay in the region.
Leaders with local economic development organizations, including the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and Visit KC, staged a call on Wednesday where they emphasized the importance of keeping the teams in the Kansas City area as their stadiums, both built in the early 1970s, continue to age.
The discussion came as both teams weigh opportunities to cash in on financial incentive deals from both Missouri and Kansas that would help cover the costs of building or renovating their stadiums. The Kansas deal expires at the end of the month but could be extended.
The business groups emphasized that building new stadiums or doing major rehabilitations for major league baseball and football teams almost always involves a mix of public and private dollars, which is what the teams have been describing for years.
Both teams have yet to announce their final plans for what kind of stadium projects they want to do and where.
Several business leaders have formed a unified force to encourage both teams to stay in the Kansas City region ahead of the teams’ announcements.
Business groups are expected to start a marketing campaign this summer emphasizing their unity in keeping the teams here, including outdoor billboards.
Tim Cowden, president and CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council, said a location anywhere is a win for the region.
“...There’s a narrative, and I understand where the narrative is coming from, that this is a violation of the border truce, or an example of the border war,” he said. “We disagree with that. We look at this as a really a border solution.”
It’s not naive to think that other markets like Charlotte, Nashville and Salt Lake City could be waiting to strike and looking for any kind of weakness, he said.
Joe Reardon, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, said Kansas City is not clustered around a lot of other cities that have Major League Baseball and National League Football teams — as the Royals and Chiefs have a fanbase that stretches far into places like Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma with fans who come to Kansas City and enjoy its amenities.
Meanwhile, there’s competition in other regions, including larger cities, to attract valuable major league teams like Kansas City already has.
But locally, the teams have their choice of lucrative deals, with lawmakers on both sides of the state line passing substantial incentive packages and multiple sites under consideration.
The Kansas financial deal, which would use future tax revenues from stadium construction to help cover costs, initially expires on June 30 but could be extended to continue negotiations.
The Missouri financial deal, which passed in a special legislative session in June, would offer financial assistance based on the revenue teams currently bring to the state, or what Missouri would lose if the teams move to Kansas.
It would require a local funding mechanism as well. There could be a sales tax election in Clay County or Jackson County. There’s also been discussion of Kansas City, Missouri officials working on a deal that would not require a public vote.
Aging stadiums, economic impact
Both Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium will approach 60 years of age as the teams’ leases at the Truman Sports Complex expire in early 2031.
According to information presented in the call, while Kauffman and Arrowhead were world-class when they were constructed and have stood the test of time, many cities that built their baseball stadiums around the same time, have since replaced them with newer facilities.
That includes Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta and St. Louis. The same holds for NFL stadiums.
Kansas City is a hub for sports architecture design and most of the stadiums that will be used during the 2026 FIFA World Cup have design ties to Kansas City firms, the business groups said.
“As we think about the future of the franchises here, in new stadiums or major rehabs, we have the best talent in the world to make sure that the next step for these teams have the kind of world class vision that the stadiums that in are existence today, that the future stadiums, have that kind of world class quality to them, making sure that Kansas City really remains on the cutting edge of sports architecture,” Reardon said.
Awaiting team announcements
Business leaders said time is of the essence as it takes more than four years to build a new stadium, and the leases and county sales tax tied to the Truman Sports Complex expire in early 2021.
Reardon noted that the Tampa Bay Rays have tried unsuccessfully for years to build a new stadium to replace Tropicana Field and have not found a way forward.
The Rays pulled out of a deal with local officials to build a new stadium earlier this year. The team is currently playing at a spring training facility after Tropicana Field was damaged in a hurricane last year.
“We know that both the Royals and Chiefs are going to be better for having their own facilities in 2031 than having to try to figure out where they might have to play temporarily going forward,” Reardon said. “So we think it’s totally understandable that the two teams are looking to try to make decisions this year, to figure out where their future or current home might be for the next coming decades.”
Officials touted the economic impact the teams have on the Kansas City region: hundreds of millions of media impressions, thousands of jobs, events like the NFL Draft, dollars spent at local businesses by visiting fans while placing Kansas City as a travel destination and the teams make philanthropic commitments in the community.
The Star has previously reported that research consistently challenges some of those ideas, finding over decades that stadiums are not major drivers of economic development and that people spend similar amounts of money on other forms of entertainment that are taxed if they don’t spend it on sports. A 2022 review of 130 studies over 30 years found that nearly all empirical studies found “little to no tangible impacts of sports teams and facilities on local economic activity.”
Kathy Nelson, president and CEO of Visit KC, said work continues on bids to host matches for future Rugby World Cups and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2031 that would open the door for international visitors.