TOPEKA, Kan. A 170-year-old rivalry is escalating as Kansas lawmakers try to snatch the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs away from Missouri, even though economists long ago concluded that subsidizing professional sports isn’t worth the cost.
Top Kansas Legislature leaders endorse aid to professional baseball’s Chiefs and Kansas City Royals finance new stadiums in Kansas before a special session scheduled for Tuesday. The plan would authorize state bonds for stadium construction and pay for them with revenue from sports betting, the Kansas Lottery and new taxes generated in and around the new sites.
The state border runs through the metropolitan area of about 2.3 million people, and teams would only move about 25 miles west.
Decades of research have concluded that a professional sports franchise doesn’t boost the local economy much, if at all, because it primarily captures existing spending elsewhere in the same community. But for Kansas officials, the spending would at least leave Missouri and come to Kansas, and outdoing Missouri has its own allure.
“My whole life I’ve wanted to see the Chiefs in Kansas, but I hope we can do it in a way that is enriching for these communities rather than creating additional burdens for them,” said Kansas State Rep. Jason Probst, a Central Kansas Democrat.
The rivalry between Kansas and Missouri can be traced back to the period leading up to the Civil War, before Kansas was even a state. People from Missouri came from the east, hoping in vain to create another slave state like yours. Both sides looted, burned and killed along the border.
There was also a century-long sports rivalry between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri. And for years the two states spent hundreds of millions of dollars to lure companies to one side or the other of the border in the Kansas City area in search of jobs. They called a uncomfortable truce in 2019.
Missouri officials are committed to being equally aggressive in keeping the Royals and Chiefs, and not just because they see them as economic assets.
“They are sources of great pride,” said Missouri state Rep. John Patterson, a suburban Kansas City Republican who is expected to be the next speaker of the state House.
Kansas Lawmakers See the Chiefs and Royals playing because voters on the Missouri side rejected in April extend a local sales tax to support their side-by-side stadiums. They also argue that not taking action risks one or both teams leaving the Kansas City area, although economists are skeptical that the threat is real.
Although the lease on the two teams’ stadium complex runs through January 2031, Kansas officials argue that the teams should make decisions soon so that new or renovated stadiums will be ready by then. They are also promising the Chiefs a stadium with a dome or retractable roof that can host Super Bowls, college basketball Final Fours and large indoor concerts.
“You have this asset and all the companies that move there as a result, or are created there,” said Kansas state Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Republican from his state’s Kansas City suburbs and leader of the effort to relocation. . “You will get commerce from this area every day.”
Approximately 60% of the area’s population lives in Missouri, but the Kansas side is growing faster.
Despite the legislative momentum in Kansas, Missouri lawmakers are in no rush to come up with alternatives. Missouri’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, told reporters Thursday that his state is “not just going to roll over,” but also said, “We’re only in the first quarter” of the race.
Both states hold primary elections on August 3, with most legislative seats up for election this year. Missouri’s April vote on a local stadium tax suggested that subsidizing professional sports teams could be a political loser in that state, especially with the conservative-leaning electorate in the Republican Party primaries.
“In Missouri, the Republican Party used to be led by a business wing that might be in favor of this kind of thing, but in the Trump era, that’s not the case,” said David Kimball of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, professor of political science. “The more conservative and the more Trump-oriented, they’re not big proponents of spending taxpayer money on almost anything.”
Kansas Republicans face pressure from the right to prevent the state from picking economic winners and losers. For Probst, the Democrat, the concern is using the government “to make rich people richer”, that is, team owners.
Economists have been studying professional sports teams and stadium subsidies since at least the 1980s. JC Bradbury, a professor of economics and finance at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, said studies show that subsidizing stadiums is “a terrible conduit for growth.” economic”.
Although supporters of the Kansas effort have cited a report that indicates large, positive economic implications, Bradbury said “false” reports are a staple of stadium campaigns.
“Stadiums are a poor public investment and I would say it’s almost unanimous consensus,” said Bradbury, who has reviewed studies and done them himself.
However, more than 30 lobbyists have registered to push for a stadium financing plan from Kansas lawmakers, and the CEO of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce called it a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to attract the Chiefs.
Not only have the Chiefs won three Super Bowl titles in five years, but they also have an especially strong fan base that has expanded because of tight end Travis Kelce. romance with pop star Taylor Swift.
The National Football League is attractive to host cities because the franchises are valued in the billions and the wealthy owners and famous players command the media spotlight, said Judith Grant Long, associate professor of sports management and urban planning at the University of Michigan. and director of its center on sports facilities.
“All of this comes together in a potent mix for politicians, civic officials and local business interests hoping to capitalize on their influence,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri, contributed to this story.
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