ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — Even before the Kansas City Chiefs held their first full-team practice at training camp for their 2024 campaign, the team has put a self-imposed deadline on deciding the future of its home venue beyond the 2030 season.
Team president Mark Donovan acknowledged in a news conference Friday that the franchise plans to decide in six months on a stadium and which side of the state line, Missouri or Kansas, it will play its home games in.
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Donovan shared that it’s possible Chiefs could continue playing at Arrowhead Stadium, which will be one of the host sites for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, after the team’s current lease expires after Jan. 31, 2031, with another major renovation of the 52-year-old building. But Donovan also said the Chiefs could elect to build a new stadium in Missouri or Kansas.
The Chiefs’ deadline comes three months after voters in Jackson County, Mo., rejected an extension of the three-eighths-cent sales tax on a ballot initiative to ensure the Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals remain in the county for at least the next 25 years. The margin of defeat for the teams was overwhelming, too. The final results showed that 78,352 people voted no (58 percent) while 56,606 voted yes (42 percent).
“Given the results of the vote, we have a much more measured response, which is we want to look at our options,” Donovan said. “We went all in (on the April ballot) and failed pretty badly. What makes the most sense for our fans? What makes the most sense for our franchise? And what makes the most sense and can have the biggest impact on this region? The positive of this is we do have options.
“This is a generational decision. This is going to impact the future of this franchise for generations. We’ve got to get it right. We are going to take our time to do it right.”
Last month, with bipartisan support, legislators in Kansas approved state bonds to aid in financing new stadiums and practice facilities for both teams.
“Kansas now has the opportunity to become a professional sports powerhouse.” Gov. Laura Kelly said then in a statement.
If the Chiefs move to Kansas, the state bonds could cover up to 70 percent of the cost of building a new stadium. The bonds would then be paid off over 30 years through revenue from sports betting, state lottery ticket sales and new sales and alcohol taxes collected from an entertainment district built around the stadium.
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“It was amazing what Kansas did,” Donovan said. “We really appreciate the leadership, (Republican Senate President) Ty Masterson and (House Speaker) Dan Hawkins and the governor, in putting that together. That’s the first step. Once you get through that, it gets really complicated. For us, the good news is that it creates more options. There are multiple options in Kansas that we can look at.”
In the past few years, developers from Kansas have sent the Chiefs proposals on a new stadium, a process that Donovan expects to continue for much of the next six months. In those discussions, developers have recommended multiple sites for a state-of-the-art NFL stadium. A logical destination could be in Kansas City, Kan., near the Kansas Speedway and Children’s Mercy Park, the home venue of Sporting Kansas City.
“We feel like we’re a pretty valuable (financial) asset to wherever we go,” Donovan said. “We think we’ve been really good partners to the state (of Missouri), the county (Jackson) and the city.
“We do believe that we’re a unique asset that would bring something that (Kansas) has never had before. The messages that we’ve gotten from the leaders in Kansas, from those who have worked on star bond projects before, is that this is the most valuable opportunity they’ve ever had, so that’s how we look at it.”
Before April’s vote, the Chiefs expressed their commitment to staying in the Truman Sports Complex, which is where the venues for the two teams have been since 1973, as the teams are sharing the lease that runs through Jan. 31, 2031.
Days ahead of the vote, John Sherman, the Royals’ new owner, said the team would pledge at least $1 billion from its ownership group for its project, a downtown ballpark in Kansas City, one that would ideally be opened by the 2028 season. Arrowhead’s projected renovations were expected to cost $800 million. Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said he and his family would contribute $300 million. The Chiefs in late February unveiled renderings of what the renovations at Arrowhead would be, changes that would enhance suites, video boards and club lounges.
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Several leaders in the city and county, however, felt the financial commitments from the Royals and Chiefs weren’t enough. Jackson County executive Frank White, who is in the Royals Hall of Fame, never fully agreed to the proposal. KC Tenants, a tenants’ rights and housing advocacy group that has 10,000 members, also campaigned against the proposal, urging voters to reject the extension by stressing that taxpayers would pay too large of a percentage to help build a new ballpark and further modernize Arrowhead.
“We have to acknowledge that that did not go over as we thought it would,” Donovan said of the Chiefs’ renovation plan. “If you really look at those renderings, and what we had planned, it’s a really exciting project. I think a lot of people went into that presentation with, ‘We’re going to see a dome and we’re going to see this incredible retail facility around it.’
“That’s just not reality. In that location, we’re not going to retrofit Arrowhead with a dome. If you talk to developers, that region right now (near Independence, Mo.) is not a place you would develop around.”
While the Royals want to play in a new ballpark before the end of their lease at Truman Sports Complex, Donovan was empathic in saying that the Chiefs will play all of their home games at Arrowhead through the 2030 season.
“Clark has been adamant about that, saying, ‘We have a lease, and we’re playing our games,’” Donovan said. “His conversations with me are like, ‘Figure out your plan around it.’”
If the Chiefs agree to move to Kansas, the construction of a new stadium for the 2031 season could begin in 2028. Hunt shared in late April that the new venue could be an open-air stadium or one with a dome.
“If you’re talking about a new dome stadium, you’re at $2.5 (billion) to $3 billion,” Donovan said. “If your star bonds are $1 billion or $1.5 billion, then where is the other half coming from? That quickly turns into how are you going to finance it. That (would be) a significant commitment by the (Hunt) family.”
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(Photo: Kyle Rivas / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Nate Taylor has been a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Kansas City Chiefs since 2018. Before that, he covered the Indiana Pacers at The Indianapolis Star for two years. He has also been a sports features writer for The New York Times and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. A Kansas City native, he graduated from the University of Central Missouri. Follow Nate on Twitter @ByNateTaylor
