The 170-year-old rivalry heats up as Kansas lawmakers try to clinch Super Bowl champion The Kansas City Chiefs are far from Missouri even though economists have long ago come to terms with pro sports Not worth the cost.
Top leaders of the Kansas Legislature supported helping the Chiefs and professional baseball players Kansas City Royals Financing new stadiums in Kansas before a special session scheduled for Tuesday. The plan would authorize state bonds to build the stadiums and pay them off with revenues from sports betting, the Kansas Lottery and additional tax money generated in and around the new venues.
The state border runs through the metropolitan area of about 2.3 million people, and teams will move only about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west.
Decades of research have concluded that a professional sports franchise does not boost the local economy much, if at all, because it mostly absorbs existing spending from elsewhere in the same community. But for Kansas officials, the spending would at least leave Missouri and reach Kansas, and upgrading Missouri has its own appeal.
“I've wanted to see Kansas leaders all my life, but I hope we can do it in a way that enriches these communities, rather than creating additional burdens for them,” said Democratic Rep. Jason Probst. From central Kansas.
The rivalry between Kansas and Missouri can be traced back to the period leading up to the Civil War, before Kansas became a state. People from Missouri came from the east, Hoping in vain to create another slave state Like their own. Both sides looted, burned and killed across the border.
There was also a century-long athletic rivalry between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri. For many years, the two countries have spent hundreds of millions of dollars luring companies to one side of the border or the other in search of jobs. They called An unstable truce In 2019.
Missouri officials pledge to be equally aggressive to keep royals and chieftains, and not just because they view them as economic assets.
“They're a source of great pride,” said Missouri Rep. John Patterson, a Republican from suburban Kansas City who is expected to become the next House speaker.
Kansas lawmakers see leaders and royals In play Because the voters are on the Missouri side Rejected in April To extend the local sales tax for side-by-side playground maintenance. Lawmakers also argue that failure to act risks one or both teams leaving the Kansas City area, though economists doubt the threat is real.
While the stadium complex's lease runs through January 2031, Kansas officials say teams should make decisions soon so that new or renovated stadiums are ready by then. They're also promising the Chiefs a stadium with a dome or retractable roof that could host Super Bowls, college basketball's Final Fours and massive indoor concerts.
“You have that asset and all the companies that moved there as a result of that, or were created there,” said Kansas state Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Republican from the suburban edges of Kansas City in his state and a leader of the relocation effort. . “You'll get trade from that area every day.”
Nearly 60% of the region's population lives in Missouri, but the Kansas side is growing more rapidly.
Despite legislative pressure in Kansas, Missouri lawmakers are in no rush to propose alternatives. Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson told reporters Thursday that his state “is not only not going to back down,” but he also said, “We're only in the first quarter” of the contest.
Both states hold primaries on August 3, with most legislative seats on the ballot this year. The vote in Missouri in April on a local stadium tax suggested that support for professional sports teams could be a political loser in that state, especially with conservative-leaning voters in the Republican primary.
“In Missouri, the Republican Party was led by a business wing that might be in favor of this kind of thing, but under Trump, that's not the case,” said David Kimball of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Lewis is a professor of political science. “The more conservative the wing and the more Trump-oriented, they're not big proponents of spending taxpayer money on much of anything.”
Kansas Republicans face pressure from the right to avoid having the state pick economic winners and losers. For Probst, a Democrat, the concern is using government “to make the rich richer,” meaning the owners of the teams.
Economists have studied professional sports teams and stadium subsidies since at least the 1980s. J.C. Bradbury, a professor of economics and finance from Kennesaw State University in Georgia, said studies show that subsidizing stadiums is a “terrible channel for economic growth.”
While supporters of the Kansas effort cited a report indicating significant and positive economic impacts, Bradbury said “false” reports are a staple of stadium campaigns.
“Stadiums are a poor public investment, and I would say that's an almost unanimous consensus,” said Bradbury, who reviewed and conducted the studies himself.
However, more than 30 lobbyists have signed up to push for the stadium funding plan from Kansas lawmakers, and the CEO of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce has called it a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to woo the bosses.
Not only have the Chiefs won three Super Bowl titles in five years, they have a particularly strong fan base expanded by tight end Travis Kelce. romantic With a pop star Taylor Swift.
Host cities find the National Football League attractive because franchises are worth billions, and wealthy owners and celebrity players capture the media spotlight, said Judith Grant Long, an assistant professor of sports management and urban planning at the University of Michigan. Center on sports fields.
“All of these things come together in a powerful mix for politicians, civic officials and local business interests hoping to leverage its influence,” she said.
