When you’re the owners of a pair of sports teams and have your heads handed to you in a voter referendum to have the public pay for your stadium projects, what’s the next step? Why, wait a few months and then try, try again, of course:
“I do think before all this is said and done, Jackson County is going to have another vote,” said [House Majority Leader Jonathan] Patterson, the presumptive next House speaker.
What’s changed since Jackson County voters rejected a sales tax hike for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals by a margin of 58-42% on April 2, of course, is that now there’s the threat of the teams moving from one Kansas City to the other. Now that the state of Kansas has approved using state sales tax money to pay for 70% of new stadium projects, with no upward limit, the hope is presumably that the fear of having to cross state lines to see games can flip 9% of county voters to approve what three months ago they rejected. Patterson straight-up said as much yesterday: “I think now with the Kansas option staring us, staring us right in the face, I think that changed the dynamic, and it would be a different vote next time around.”
This gets us to one of the reasons it’s been so hard to get any lasting wins in the now nearly four-decade-old battle against public stadium subsidies: Team owners can absorb as many defeats as they have to, so long as they eventually get one victory. If they’re rejected by city officials, they can go to the state; if by the state, they can turn to the county. If a referendum fails, they can seek to have elected officials just override the results. Or they can just wait three months and call a do-over of the exact same referendum, this time with less carrot and more stick, and see if the results are any different.
(Or, yes, they could dip into the $400 million a year in league TV and sponsorship revenues they collect before selling a ticket. But that would be crazy talk.)
There’s still lots to work out about any new public ballot measure, including when it would be held, whether the terms of the sales-tax hike and how it would be spent would be the same as last time, and whether Royals owner John Sherman even wants to go that route again after his extreme personal anti-charisma helped torpedo the last measure. (Sherman still has a backup plan in North Kansas City in Clay County, Missouri, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has met with officials there to discuss that possibility.) All options are on the table, really, which is kind of remarkable just 98 days after one of the more decisive anti-stadium-subsidy votes in recent memory — but apparently the lesson of 21st century democracy is if you have enough money and pull with local government, if you don’t like the election results, just wait a few minutes and try again.
Certainly they could dip into their revenue, but the other billionaires might make fun of them, or worse their net worth might dip below the billion mark and they’ll get kicked out of the billionaires club
https://youtu.be/1GAfsRAJcoU?si=HvitNYDIVWgabX6T
And besides they need that money to clear cut a forest, or get platinum wheels for their car, or buy another house somewhere.
And anyway, won’t you think about their need to feed their family?!
I’ve often wondered if it is the billionaire who pays for his stadium feels like a chump when hanging around the other billionaires.
Having spent significant time with a billionaire not too long ago, I think it cannot be overestimated how much they are motivated by “But what will the other billionaires think?”
I think much of our current political age can trace its roots back to “a bunch of billionaires emerged due to some deeply fucked economic policies, and they became primarily concerned about their cultural capital.”
I would like that on one coffee mug, please.
That comment might win the week.
Well Neil there’s a quite interesting anecdote there? Care to share?
My guess is the billionaire is going to buy this domain and you are going to take a well deserved retirement on a private island…..
During my last year at the Village Voice in 2018, the editor-in-chief quit and the billionaire failson publisher, Peter Barbey, designated a four-person “troika” (I know, believe me I know) including me to be the interim editor and meet with him weekly to talk about the paper’s direction. It was very eye-opening, though also very blood-pressure-raising.
Probably the most defining moment was when we were trying to hire a writer so we could save money on freelance articles, and Peter kept saying he didn’t understand how it would save us money. So I made him a simple spreadsheet comparing the two options, and ten minutes in I realized, ohhhhh, he doesn’t know how to read a spreadsheet…
Fascinating!
Thanks Neil!
I used to subscribe to the Village Voice back in the early 90’s here in Austin. The paper would come to my little apartment mailbox everyday.
My mailman was not amused…..
For the 75% or so of Jackson County voters who never go to a Royals or Chiefs game, so what they move to Kansas or Oz, I’m not paying more sales tax.
For those few that go to lots of games, flip a coin, heads I’ll go east to Independence, tails I’ll go west to Kansas. It’s not like they’re moving to Greensboro or that stupid Jacksonville. Probably half of the season ticket holders live in Johnson County Kansas anyway.
It’s a good point and I wonder if these sorts of “move to a different part of the metro” threats really sway any elections. We know it does for politicians, but I don’t know if voters care that much. The failed Caps/Wiz move to NoVa is another recent example.
For what it’s worth, in an old article, a Chiefs executive said that 60 percent of Chiefs season ticket holders lived in Johnson County.
So, Missouri residents will be subsidizing tens of thousands of Kansas residents when they give the Chiefs $600 million or whatever. And the only things those Kansans will buy on their very brief visits to Missouri are food and parking at the stadium.
Smart voters will vote the package down by a larger margin if it is re-presented. After all, you don’t need a passport or an airline ticket to drive a few miles across the state line to see your team play, and the other county can pick up the sales tax bill.
I hope so, Graham. But far too many times we’ve seen casual fans swayed by “but the team will leave” arguments that are either flat out untrue or misleading (as in this case… for a significant number of people the move across state lines would make the journey to see the team shorter, not longer).
Nothing would please me more than to see the next ballot measure defeated 60-40.
I wonder if the Chiefs insistence on playing last year’s playoffs in dangerously cold temperatures was an attempt to gin up support for an indoor stadium? “After a few cases of frostbite, the fans will beg us to take their money to build a domed stadium.”
Ah, democracy. We had a vote. Didn’t like the result. Time for another vote and we’ll keep going until we get the result we want.
So presumably after a ‘winning’ vote the proponents will be keen to wait a few months to see if another supplemental vote is taken to rescind their welfare for billionaires scheme?
Never thought I’d see the day when the Hunt family (ies) became wannabe John Fishers (and don’t forget the assclown sidekick).
“gun to voters’ heads”
Huh. Personally I would jump at the chance to get rid of every welfare-mooching sports team. If a nearby city is willing to pay to take them off our hands, all the better. And if it’s a different state – well, that’s just a gift you can’t pass up. Missourians should be thrilled at offloading the cost of keeping “their” teams in the neighborhood.