Professional sports team owners are at it again. This time, it’s the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals who want fans, along with their fellow taxpayers who may be indifferent to sports, to help them with their business expenses. Early voting has already begun as Jackson County prepares to decide whether to partially fund the teams’ stadium projects or potentially lose the teams to another city.
The Chiefs proposed $800 million renovations at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, for which the owners will pay just $300 million. The Royals, meanwhile, announced plans in February for a brand new stadium The estimated cost is $2 billion, of which only half is expected to be paid by the royals with private funds.
The vote, which ends April 2, will see residents choose to eliminate the current sales tax that covers part of the stadium’s operating costs or replace it with a new one, for a total of about $2 billion and scheduled for a period of 40 years, in order to pay part of the price. Every team would receive $27 million in taxes per year.
So what will happen if voters reject it? “We should consider all our options” She said Mark Donovan, the president of the Chiefs. “I think they should include leaving Kansas City.” His appeal could very well influence voters, considering that there is a long story of these threats operating in the city.
The Royals echoed Donovan’s thoughts: “There are a lot of cities that would love to have these franchises,” She said John Sherman, the majority owner of the Royals. And the Committee to Keep the Chiefs and Royals in Jackson County noticed that “if the vote doesn’t pass, both teams will consider all options.”
But even if they to insist These taxes are necessary, it’s hard not to see their threats as a way to scare voters into shelling out taxpayer money so both teams can save private funds. Leaked documents indicate that taxpayers could end up paying as much as $5.1 billion over four decades, far more than the teams estimated.
Sports giants are in fact so eager to save every penny that a $1 million ask by Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. to finance the election, in order to avoid taking funds from the city’s emergency reserve, has so far been ignored by the teams. The initiative “poses a significant dilemma,” White said, “given our commitment to safeguarding the country’s financial stability.”
It’s worth noting that the Hunt family, who own the Chiefs and whose fortune stems from oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, is worth nearly $25 billion, according to Forbes. Setting aside the questionable ethics of exploiting local sporting enthusiasm as a weapon to save private funds, there is no clear reason why the owners cannot pay for the renovations themselves.
As for the royals, the sales tax would cover only a third of the stadium costs. The reason is far from encouraging. Most of the funds would go toward covering the county’s debts to the Truman Sports Complex, as well as interest payments on the team’s construction loan, leaving “between $250 million and $350 million that can actually be used to cover expenses of the stadium”.
In other words, the public would be forced to pay the price for the mismanagement of a private company. Equally dubious is the claim that the team needs a new stadium: A 2022 study concluded that the Royals’ current home ground, Kauffman Stadium, is in “satisfactory condition.”
Some small business owners are mobilizing against stadiums, because, perhaps most infuriatingly, many of these businesses would be razed in the process of building Royals stadium. “We’re all a little stunned right now, still, that they chose this location,” She said Matt Adkins, owner of a wine bar and grocery store. “There is literally something five blocks away [in the East Village] where they say, ‘Please come here instead.'”
When Donovan it was asked regarding business owners’ apprehensions about the effects stadium reforms would have on the Crossroads district, he responded: “Change is hard, and there’s a lot of information that needs to be put out there… We think downtown baseball is right for the baseball”. OK. But is this fair to the city and its residents?