Stadium Construction
Missouri Offers Incentives to Keep Chiefs, Royals From Moving to Kansas
Football, baseball teams have until June 30 to accept competing offer to build stadiums in neighboring state
The Kansas City Royals had hoped to build a $2-billion baseball district in Kansas City before voters rejected a sales tax increase proposed in 2024 to help fund it.
Image courtesy of the Kansas City Royals
In a move that could lead to hundreds of millions in stadium construction dollars wherever the teams go, Missouri is hitting back against Kansas in an effort to keep the Kansas City Chiefs football team and the Kansas City Royals baseball team from movng. At the same time, a deadline looms for the teams to decide whether to accept a competing offer to build their stadiums in Kansas.
On June 14, Missouri Gov. Mark Kehoe signed the “Show-Me Sports Investment Act,” which authorizes bonds to cover up to 50% of stadium costs and $50 million in tax credits for the teams that are both currently based in Kansas City, Mo.
The Missouri law creates a bidding war against legislation approved in Kansas in 2024 that is intended to lure the teams across the state line. It allows Kansas to use Sales Tax and Revenue Bonds for National Football League/Major League Baseball stadium projects of at least $1 billion, and would enable 70% state bond funding with repayment tied to projected tax revenue in the districts, which have not been identified, where the stadiums would locate.
The deadline for the teams to accept Kansas’ offer is June 30.
Both teams currently play at the Truman Sports Complex on the east side of Kansas City. The Chiefs call Arrowhead Stadium home and the Royals play at Kauffman Stadium.
Both teams' leases with Jackson County, Mo., which owns the stadiums, are set to expire in January 2031, and the two franchises have been trying for several years to determine their next steps.
The move by Kansas to attract the two teams came after voters in Jackson County, Mo., rejected a proposal in March 2024 to extend a current 3/8th-cent sales tax to help pay for demolishing and replacing 51-year-old Kauffman Stadium and to fund renovation of its neighbor, Arrowhead Stadium.
The Royals had presented a plan to create a $2-billion park district in Kansas City's Crossroads District, just outside its downtown area. A new stadium, which would seat 34,000, would have been built on the site of the former Kansas City Star building. It was proposed to feature an adjacent development with office, residential and retail space and a hotel.
The Chiefs' plan was for an $800-million renovation of Arrowhead Stadium, including a turf-covered zone with tailgate areas and a covered entertainment center that would have been built on the current site of Kauffman Stadium. It would have included a new upper concourse connection bridge, new stadium amenities, retail spaces and restrooms, an access tunnel, three new pedestrian bridges and a new parking deck.
The teams have not yet unveiled any new stadium plans.
The sports investment act was approved by the Missouri legislature during a mid-June 2025 special session. State Rep. Jim Murphy, a Republican from St. Louis, spoke in favor of the incentives. “I was in the corporate world,” he said. “There are people who say ‘Oh. They [the teams] won’t go.’ Yes. They will go.”
Another Republican, State Rep. Darin Chappell from Rogersville, Mo., spoke against providing public monies for stadiums. “Most of the people in my district can’t afford a ticket to either of these sporting events,” he said. “They are more concerned about putting food on the table, fuel in their tank, paying their rent and paying their taxes."
