I have to figure hardly anyone is reading this here on Christmas weekend, but for those of you who are, here’s an abbreviated news roundup, much of it about the proposed Kansas City Chiefs stadium deal, because almost everything is this week:
- The STAR bonds that Kansas plans to use to finance $1.8 billion worth of a Chiefs stadium (and close to $1 billion in other development by the team) confuse a lot of people, and headlines like the Kansas City Star’s “Much of Wyandotte, Johnson counties will pay for Chiefs stadium with sales tax” aren’t helping. No, people inside the “stadium district,” which could end up covering much of those two counties, won’t be paying extra taxes for the stadium; rather, an amount equal to all future sales and liquor tax receipts above what the district is getting now will be removed from the state’s general fund and used to pay Clark Hunt’s stadium bills. (State officials seem to believe that all this will be free money because the only reason tax revenues will rise in the area will be the eight home games a year the Chiefs will play, which is insane on several levels — more on that after the holiday.) That means the cost will fall just as much on Kansans in Topeka and Wichita and points west as it will on those in and around Kansas City, since the state will have to find a way to pay its future bills without a couple hundred million dollars a year in tax revenues it would have otherwise gotten. So really it’s “Everyone anywhere in Kansas will pay for Chiefs stadium,” hth.
- Elected officials in Missouri, meanwhile, have learned their lesson from the huge giveaway across the border: Time to try to throw billions of dollars at the Royals owners or risk being left without any billionaires to give tax money to. KC, MO Mayor Quinton Lucas noted on Tuesday that voters look to be opposed to this sort of thing, so “we’ve talked about a pathway that allows us to do it through public body approval rather than perhaps having to go to the ballot box,” take that, voters who insist on having opinions the mayor doesn’t like!
- Construction of the Athletics‘ planned Las Vegas stadium is ongoing — for now, at least — but the casino complex that’s supposed to surround it may not happen for a while if ever: Leaseholder Bally’s has yet to announce a financing plan for its part of the project, and may yet seek another investor to take over the development. That could be a problem for A’s owner John Fisher, who was counting on Bally’s building a parking lot and other infrastructure that the ballpark would use, meaning he’d need to find a way to pay for it on his own, even while figuring out how to pay for the bulk of his $2 billion stadium on his own.
- Greater Greater Washington has a good long rundown on how this year’s Commanders stadium deal became so bad that it still outpaces even the extremely bad Chiefs stadium deal, dipping briefly into a discussion of Swiss semioticians before returning to its main point: “The moderate flank of our government behaved as recklessly and irresponsibly with the District’s finances as their progressive colleagues are so often accused of, but, because it’s sports, masquerading as economic development, they won’t be attacked by business advocates, the press, or public opinion for putting their pet causes first.” Well, possibly by public opinion, but mayors know how to get around that.
- Finally, I did a bunch of interviews this week about the Chiefs stadium deal, and you can find one of them here — another from December 24 should be showing up here, but it looks like it’s been delayed by the Christmas rush, check back later.
Quibble: because NFL teams currently play 17 regular season games on their way to the inevitable 18, the Chiefs could play eight or nine home games in a given year.
Then there are 1-2 preseason games, which still generate revenue and taxes and whatnot despite not counting in the standings.
When it stabilizes at 18+2, it should be 10 most years without an international game that cannibalizes a home game.
This does not make it all any less stupid, of course. That’s why it’s a quibble.
Good quibble, though — ten(ish) home games a year is still insane on several levels, but I’ll make sure that’s the baseline in whatever final numbers I come up with. (And by “I” I more likely mean Geoff Propheter.)
They may well go to 18… you know the owners all want to do it (at least until they decide they actually need 20…), but it is possible that saner heads will prevail.
We are probably stuck with 17 games, though if the NFL has it’s way they will keep expanding international games until franchises are back to 8 home 8 road and 1 off shore.
Just imagine the pageantry of the Titans v Cardinals, live from Rwanda, Belarus or Myanmar. We already know that the NFL will take money from literally anyone, so it’s really just a matter of finding someone vainstupid enough to pay $500m for a single regular season game.
There are candidates…
Ignoring the will of the voters is how this legislature gets things done in Missouri as the legislature has forced an upcoming deceptively worded revote of last year’s voter approved state constitutional amendment guaranteeing particular health care options for women.
They are also working hard now to restrict (read: “reduce” (read: “eliminate”)) ballot petition initiatives as an anti-redistricting group has delivered 3x the required number of signatures to force a statewide vote on their MAGA-fueled hyperpartisan intra-census redistricting scheme for federal representation which is already ridiculously partisan to begin with.
St. Louisan here – I came here to say this, Gary. You’re spot on. The GOP in the MO legislature hasn’t met a popular referendum isn’t hasn’t tried to overturn or subvert.
And repealing the livable wage was Priority One for the state Chamber of Commerce, which the legislature pursued and Gov. Parson signed into law.
Subsidies for big business … citizens’ rights suppressed … corporate power protected … all are among the hallmarks of fascism, whether in the Third Reich or the Show Me State.
In other news, the former DSG is just about bankrupt (again)… and needs outside investment just to continue to fail to make it’s rights payments as schedule…
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6914257/2025/12/23/fanduel-sports-network-sale-dazn-funds/
Gee, it’s really too bad that all the “professionals” in the first bankruptcy case didn’t see this coming. I’m guessing most FoS readers sure did.
In Kansas where the Chiefs will be playing, there should be gambling revenue with casinos already in the area and surely will have one attached to the zone around the stadium. Johnson county is getting the new practice facility. Most of the Chiefs players and staff live in Kansas already because of the taxes in Missouri. With a dome they can have other events when it’s cold. I hope all this is the case. If you want things like this you pay for it. Lamar Hunt moved his team from his home town in Dallas to Lamsas City because he needed an open market and H. Row Bartle offered a place to play and money to do it. If your state chooses to not pay, then you end up like Missouri, where you run off nearly every professional sports franchise in your state. And in Kansas, if people are pissed, then they should have elected different representatives. I’m excited about the 20,000 jobs that should be produced. But, the real question is, how am I going to make money off the bloated and surely wasteful multi billion dollar project? Like your article.
Yeah, about those 20,000 jobs: Those are just temporary construction jobs, and will evaporate once the stadium is built. The state’s own number for permanent jobs in and around the stadium is just 4,000, and it appears that includes part-time workers like concessions staff:
https://www.kansascommerce.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Economic-Impact-Report-of-NFL-STAR-Bond-Project-12.22.2025.pdf
70,000 people are really going to drive to Kansas in January to go to a concert.? I do everything possible to avoid driving anywhere near Kansas year round. Missouri just unloaded 2 deadweight anchors that were about to consume billions in state tax revenue. Maybe Kansas can have the Royals too. And if Indiana wants a second NFL team to throw subsidy after subsidy at, Indiana can also have a flying saucer to clutter their lakefront.
Yeah, that.
I would like someone with a background in events economics to explain exactly what kind of “major events” require a 70k seat stadium and a 2+ acre (approx 100,000sqft) display area?
Sure, the floor space is useful for trade shows, etc. But how many touring acts actually need both the floor space and the seating?
Yes, you will get A superbowl if you spend $5bn subsidizing the NFL billionaires club. Ask Indianapolis about that experience.
You might get a final four game or maybe a college bowl game (but not one of the big ones… they are mostly spoken for and have fixed or near fixed home locations). So it’s the Pop Tarts/Camping World/ServPro First Responders/Duke’s Mayo/PeptoBismol bowl for you.
Take a good look at the number of people in the stands for some of these games, matchup be damned. They are huge money losers.
How about a world cup or summer tour game? Well, the WC only happens every four years and, at least to date, isn’t always in America. And if you watched the 2008 UEFA CL final in Moscow, you know why European football clubs do not accept laying grass turf over artificial for anything but secondary competitions. So add a roll out grass field (and another $300m or so) if you want to make a run at any of those types of events.
Monster trucks? Now yer talkin’. Stadium supercross? Sure. How about another indoor/stadium Nascar event?? Ok maybe not…
Convention centres need configurable floor space. Entertainment acts need lots of seating (though often only a modest amount of floor space). Only major sporting events need both.
There are not a plethora of events desperately seeking a facility to host them in Kansas from February to June. Any legitimate large events that do schedule their conventions in that window have dozens of other major cities as options to go to.
Despite it’s billion dollar price tag, Lucas Oil stadium in Indy did not turn that city into an offseason destination centre. Nor, according to the website, is it actually packed with non football events.
If you want to spend a billion (or six) bribing your local NFL team owner to ‘not even think’ about relocating, knock yourselves out. Just don’t try to dress it up as anything other than the bribe it is.
“If you don’t like this, you should invent a time machine to go back and change your vote and those of 25,000 other people and also pass an annex to the local commercial code that punishes politicians who lie with banishment to a Mad Max-like wasteland.”
Great post.
The construction jobs are temporary and that is the problem. It seems that every few years there has to be a big public sector project so the contractors and unions stay flush. Doesn’t really matter what the project is as long as it’s big. Arenas, airports, entertainment districts, luxury downtown housing, the list goes on. The common denominator is the taxpayers are paying for most of it
I love the (seemingly) widely shared internet meme about all the sports teams Missouri has “lost.”
Because, God knows, Missourians will no longer be able to go to Chiefs home games.
Agreed. This is yuge win for Chiefs fans who live in Missouri, or just not in Kansas.
Laura Kelly is my early nominee for the Scruggs-Beasley award for public disservice in 2026. It’s a crowded field, but she has the inside track.
San Diego lost its NBA team then it’s NFL team. Detroit has all four major sports. Sports teams do not determine a city’s future. If they do why did Detroit go bankrupt and San Diego thrive?