By failing to extend a sales tax that would have financed a renovation of Arrowhead Stadium, Jackson County, Missouri opened the door for Kansas to pilfer the Chiefs.
And Kansas is doing its damnedest to do so. On the first day of a special legislative session, the Kansas House passed a bill that would finance new homes for the Chiefs and the Royals.
In a Kansas City Star article that describes the burgeoning border battle between Missouri and Kansas as a “confrontation” between the two states for the two teams, Kansas Senator Rob Olsen predicts that a new Chiefs stadium in Kansas “would host a Super Bowl within a few years.”
That’s the curveball that could have a major impact on the outcome of the effort to keep the Chiefs in the region. Improvements to Arrowhead Stadium wouldn’t bring the Super Bowl to town, unless the upgrades include a roof. A new stadium in Kansas would be a dome, which could lead to the usual cold-weather city quid pro quo — as the NFL has done in Minneapolis (twice), Indianapolis, and Detroit (twice).
In discussing the situation during Wednesday’s #PFTPM, I did some thinking out loud on the question of why the Chiefs didn’t more specifically float Kansas as an alternative to Missouri before the failed vote in April?
It could have been phrased as a matter of state pride. If you don’t extend the sales tax, Kansas will take your teams.
The question is whether that truly would have moved the needle. If, in the end, the “or else” was that the Chiefs (and Royals) would just be playing in a neighboring community, maybe Jackson County residents would have been more determined to not approve the measure. If the Chiefs are still playing in short driving distance, who cares whether the stadium is in Missouri or Kansas?
Regardless, the battle is now joined. The Star separately points out that Missouri will now try to finagle the financing not through the ballot box (which is a virtually guaranteed failure in any jurisdiction) but through the usual (and far more effective) backroom political maneuverings.
The Chiefs have yet to tip their hand. Which is smart. They should sit back and wait for Kansas and Missouri to pressure each other to do better and better and better and then make their move.
However it plays out, the Chiefs will play at Arrowhead through 2030. By 2031, however, Kansas City could be playing in Kansas.