First things first: The Kansas City council voted on a proposed city funding package for a new Royals stadium yesterday, and as expected, it sailed through, with councilmembers voting 11-2 to approve a series of agreements promising $600 million in cash plus at least $500 million in tax breaks toward a new $1.9 billion stadium at Crown Center.
The council vote came amid more protests from members of the labor group Missouri Workers Power, who vowed to move ahead with plans for November ballot measure on the plan, which if it goes against the council’s verdict will likely spark a legal battle over which vote takes precedence. Councilmember Johnathan Duncan, one of the two no votes yesterday, said the council shouldn’t have voted without waiting for independent economic analyses of the plan; Mayor Quinton Lucas retorted that there will soon be a TIF district analysis made available along with other studies, and “if for some reason the third party financial review says, ‘this doesn’t work,’ then these things don’t go forward,” though it’s not clear what council action would be necessary to undo yesterday’s decision.
Kansas City Star columnist David Hudnall summed up the situation before the council vote: “Huge financial questions remain unanswered. Some pages in the agreements are literally blank. … They don’t want us to vote on this stadium, and pushing it through like this is their best chance of making sure the public doesn’t have a say.”
Fran Marion, a fast food worker and Missouri Workers Power leader, said in addition to the proposed ballot measure, “we see how our mayor and council members voted, and we know elections are coming up in April and June, and we will remember what they did today.” That’s absolutely been known to happen, though it’d be cold comfort for Kansas Citians to get revenge on local councilmembers (Lucas is term-limited out in 2027) while still being stuck with a huge public tab, just as it was for residents of Wisconsin and Cobb County and Miami before them.
And in other news of the week:
- Tampa Mayor Jane Castor now says that a revised Tampa Bay Rays stadium plan could see the city of Tampa fronting $80 million while the Rays ownership would take out a $100 million loan, all of which would be repaid out of future property tax receipts. That would still 100% be replacing city tax money with city tax money, with the Tampa Bay Business Journal acknowledging that there’s “not much” difference between a Community Redevelopment Area district (the old plan) and a Tax Increment Financing district (the new one). Castor promised, “We’re not going to rush into an agreement just for the sake of time,” while also saying that a council vote could come as early as next week despite no one knowing yet exactly how the financing would work.
- The Federal Railroad Administration has approved two grants totaling $659 million for relocating an Amtrak facility in Chicago, which could clear the way for the 14th Street rail yard to be used by incoming Chicago White Sox owner Justin Ishbia to build a new stadium there. Who would fund that project still remains very much an unknown, but it seems like we’re headed toward finding out.
- After receiving $750 million in state money for his Las Vegas stadium, Raiders owner Mark Davis is now asking for another $75 million to fund a new entry plaza in advance of hosting the 2029 Super Bowl. The money would come out of a “waterfall” fund set aside for Raiders stadium upgrades from the same hotel tax money that paid for the first $750 million — but that’s still not without its costs in terms of draining funds you might need later for other repair needs, as Cleveland could tell you.
- “I don’t think the Steelers have any plans of leaving” their 25-year-old stadium, said Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor this week, but “the reality is both stadiums need upgrades” and “I think to compete, we’re gonna have to have those conversations long term with the Steelers and the Pirates.” Left unspecified: What kind of upgrades the stadiums need, who would pay for them, and who O’Connor thinks he’d be “competing” with exactly.
- Speaking of needs and wants and competition, Boston Celtics owner Bill Chisholm said this week that he doesn’t need a new arena to compete with other teams financially, but “I do think we need to have an arena that is consistent with the quality and the excellence of the Celtics.” Chisholm added, “if we can make it work, we’d love to stay where we are,” all of which sounds very much like gamesmanship with his current landlords, Delaware North, whose owner also owns the Bruins.
From the agreement: “The parties acknowledge that City cannot legally commit to provide funding to pay the debt service on the City-Supported Bonds in future years. ”
More verbage about a commitment from the city to appropriate payments so as to satisfy bond rating agencies.
My thoughts are if city council candidates pledged not to appropriate funds if elected would that scare the bond rating agencies and potential bond buyers?
Don’t the Steelers and Pirates both have roughly a decade left on their existing stadium deals/leases? Unless I’m confusing them with other teams, I thought they both agreed 35 year deals in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in free stadium & surrounds?
Nope, 2030 for Pirates, 2031 for Steelers:
https://www.pgh-sea.com/userfiles/PiratesLeaseAgreement.pdf
I can imagine the Mayor of Pittsburgh tends to think of The Steelers as a “We” situation. There’s a lot of that in Western PA and historically, the Rooneys have repaid that loyalty. But both he and whatever Rooney is in charge right now needs to remember that The Steelers are actually not a public trust.
The Pirates stadium is, very often, the only reason why people go to see the Pirates. They’re competing with literally anything else somebody might want to do with that time and money. But again, that should not be the taxpayers’ problem.
Thanks Neil. Gee, time flies when you are enjoying public funding, I guess…
The Celtics angle is an interesting one because it puts the lie to the idea that teams in multi-sport markets are all supportive of each other. In reality, they’re all competing against each other for attention, street cred, and (mostly importantly) revenue within their respective cities. You could even argue that the Celtics’ greatest rivals are actually the Bruins rather than the Lakers, even though they’ve often competed with the latter for championships.
Franchises in cities like Boston, NY, LA, and Chicago will never be starved for money, but the pursuit of the last dollar remains just as fierce at it does in smaller markets that “only” have teams in two or three leagues. Which is precisely why they use every angle they can find to try and grab hold of that dollar.
After the Sixers/Flyers throwdown and the Stars/Mavs one (they finally settled this week, I didn’t get around to writing a bullet point for it), I’d think it should be pretty clear to everyone that even as sports team owners fight for money against host cities and against their players, they are also fighting each other for dominance of their markets. Doubly so with arenas, because everybody wants to have the shiniest place to appeal to concert promoters.
Here’s the greatest argument against the state of Indiana building a government-funded stadium for the Chicago Bears.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/gary-indiana-residents-power-out-until-next-week/
Gary has been without power since August 11 when a derecho roared through northern Indiana. Not only is Gary one of the poorest and blackest cities in America, the local power company Nipsco didn’t include Gary in restoration estimates right after the storm. And Gary is in the county where the Bears stadium would be erected.
(News story from WBBM-TV)
Fortunately, there’s no chance this power company is going to treat rich people like that. We’ll make sure of it.
I think this should become part of the community benefits agreement
“vote for the stadium funding and you will get your power turned back on again. You know, eventually. Obviously not right away because we’ve got ground work and structural stuff to do. But… one day…it could happen”
McCaskey could get an inside track on the NFL executive of the year for humanitarian work like this. But you didn’t hear that from me.
Indiana has been living in the 1920s for over 100 years. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
I read an article in the KC Beacon by Josh merchant. It was reported that in April of 2026, Kansas City, MO was only able to get a 5.7% interest rate on its special obligation bonds. To avoid a vote, the KC government is committing to this type of bond. Is that an annual rate or lifetime interest due? At that rate the $600,000,000 interest would be 34.5 million. Is the principal on those bonds paid back as a balloon payment or is it divided up over the 30 year bond? I’m trying to figure out the annual payments required to come out of the general fund each year.
Should be annual rate, and principal divided up over the 30 years. But the stadium funding agreement has a project budget that is just “see attached” with no attachment, so we really can’t say for sure.
There was reportedly a “Downtown Stadium Tax Increment Financing Plan” released on Friday, but I can’t find it on the TIF Commission’s website, and the news stories haven’t included a link:
https://www.kctv5.com/2026/08/22/downtown-stadium-tif-plan-released-with-dollar-figures-stadium-debt-repayment/
Finally found the TIF district document, and it doesn’t say whether the bonds would be paid off at an even rate or with balloon payments, so that’s officially TBD:
https://edckc-tif.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/Downtown%20Stadium%20TIF%20Plan%20Complete%20Doc%20%20%2808-21-26%29.pdf
Instead of building near a rail yard, Justin Ishbia should talk with the good folks in Indiana about building a stadium on that prime lakefront property. I hear that state just throws money around like a drunk sailor on a three-day pass.