JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said Thursday he expects the state to come up with an aid plan by the end of the year to try to prevent the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from being lured across state lines for new stadiums in Kansas.
Missouri’s renewed efforts come after Kansas approved a plan last week that would fund up to 70 percent of the cost of new stadiums for professional soccer and baseball teams.
“We’re going to make sure we put the best trade deal we can into play,” Parson told reporters as he presented the Chiefs’ two most recent Super Bowl trophies at the Capitol, where fans lined up to take photos.
“Look, I can’t blame Kansas for trying,” Parson added. “You know, if I was probably sitting there, I’d be doing the same thing. But at the end of the day, we’re going to be competitive.”
The Chiefs and Royals have played for more than 50 years in side-by-side stadiums built in east Kansas City, drawing fans from both states in the divided metropolitan area. Their stadium leases extend through 2031. But Royals owner John Sherman has said the team will not play at Kauffman Stadium beyond the 2030 season, expressing a preference for a new downtown stadium.
Questions about the teams’ future intensified after Jackson County, Missouri, voters rejected in April a sales tax that would have helped fund a more than $2 billion downtown stadium district for the Royals and an $800 million renovation of the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium.
The tax plan faced several obstacles. Some Royals fans preferred the teams’ current site. Others opposed the tax. Still others were concerned about the plans for the new stadium, 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, which often Take advantage of one place over another in an effort to obtain the largest public subsidies for new or improved stadiums.
Sports teams are driving a new wave of stadium construction across the United States, going beyond basic repairs to bring in new revenue from luxury suites, restaurants, shops and other developments around their stadiums.
On Monday, the Charlotte, North Carolina, City Council approved public funding to finance an $800 million renovation of the Carolina Panthers football stadium. The city of Jacksonville, Florida, approved a $1.25 billion NFL Jaguars stadium renovation plan that splits the cost between the city and the team.
Many economists argue that while stadiums may increase tax revenue in their immediate area, they tend to divert consumer spending from other entertainment and rarely generate enough new economic activity to offset all of the public subsidies.
Parson said that “the Kansas City Chiefs and the Royals are big companies,” comparing them to big companies that have received public aid like Boeing, Ford and General Motors. But he added that any deal “has to work on paper so that it is beneficial to Missouri taxpayers.”
“I think by the end of this year we’ll have something ready” to propose for stadiums, Parson said.
Missouri’s plan, which is still undefined, would likely require legislative approval, but Parson said he doesn’t anticipate calling 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 would also need support from the next governor and a new slate of lawmakers.
Now that Kansas has enacted a funding law, discussions between sports teams and the Kansas Department of Commerce could begin at any time, but the agency has no timetable 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.
David A. Lieb, Associated Press
