Chiefs and Royals threatening to leave Kansas City squanders decades of fans’ love | Opinion
Will Jackson County voters approve the stadium sales tax on April 2?
I don’t know. It’s harder than ever to sort through the social media noise, private polls and spin to be confident about any election outcome, let alone this one. Today, local elections turn on last-week energy and organization, not broad messages and claims. That makes predictions hard.
We know this: The Royals and Chiefs, and their hired guns, are nervous. They’re on television, and in the streets, pushing for approval of the 3/8-cent levy. They’re spending serious money. Their cheerleaders in sports talk radio are in full voice. The mail pieces are coming.
Whatever happens on April 2, though, perhaps we can all agree on this: The push for a stadium tax extension has been the most half-baked, slipshod, amateurish effort the region has seen in decades, perhaps ever. The stadium argument has been a disaster, and it remains a disaster in the measure’s final hours.
I’m not talking about the actual campaign, which is relying on familiar tropes: the Chiefs, fireworks, “momentum,” more Chiefs, and still more Chiefs. I’m talking about the fundamental lack of planning and discussion about the stadiums that should have taken place years ago, long before this proposal or anything like it was presented for public consideration.
As of this writing, Jackson County still lacks signed lease extensions with either franchise. That’s an unconscionable failure, and reason enough to vote no. Why agree to a 33-year tax extension when either club could leave after 2031?
The teams have touted new community benefit agreements that promise spending for projects and programs outside the ballparks. Those CBAs are meaningless, though, until compared with the actual leases. If taxpayers substantially pay for routine maintenance at the stadiums, the CBAs could represent spending transfers, not firm team commitments.
We still don’t know what the state will provide, if anything, for either team. That should have been made clear months ago. We don’t know the city’s role, or what role the Cordish Companies played in convincing the Royals to move closer to the Power & Light District. The site selection for downtown-area baseball was needlessly postponed, angering affected property owners.
Fundamental issues that might have been settled in 2022 and 2023 remain question marks hours before the votes are tallied. Never before, in my memory, have voters been asked to accept a proposal more on faith than actual facts.
Who’s to blame for this sad reality? Politicians, especially Jackson County Executive Frank White, may have been needlessly obstructive. Mayor Quinton Lucas has been largely missing in action. Gov. Mike Parson has been too busy.
But let’s be real: The Royals and Chiefs bear most of the responsibility for this fiasco. In their arrogance, they believed they could simply announce their plans, and the public would get in line.
That isn’t the way politics and governance work, not in 2024. The Chiefs are extraordinarily good at football, and the Royals are pretty good at baseball, but neither club understands public policy decision-making, to the community’s disappointment and chagrin.
There is no natural constituency for new or improved stadiums. No one has claimed the “fan experience” at Arrowhead is substandard. Few people, other than a few aging fanboys, have demanded baseball in the city center. The people have demanded winning baseball, which is not the same thing.
No one is buying “concrete cancer,” either.
Stadium opponents have organized, and spoken out, with fewer resources but greater access than ever to the public square. It may be enough to defeat the tax.
It seems the Chiefs and Royals see all of this, because they’re brought out their biggest weapon: Vote yes, they say, or we’ll move somewhere else. The threat may or may not be real, but making it is a huge mistake — it has squandered decades of good will earned by both clubs.
The Royals and Chiefs, beloved community assets, have turned into mercenaries willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder. It’s tragic. It will take the teams years to recover.
You know who understood this? Ewing Kauffman and Lamar Hunt. They never threatened to leave Kansas City, and in fact worked to keep their teams here. When the Bistate II stadium tax failed in 2004, Hunt and then-Royals owner David Glass (Kauffman’s friend and successor) didn’t pout or promise to move. They worked for another solution in 2006. They got it.
Let’s hope the current owners have the same wisdom if the tax fails April 2. We can try again, and work hard to remove the stain this process has spread across our community.
Dave Helling is a former Kansas City Star reporter, columnist and editorial board member.
