A New Plan In The Kansas City Stadium Game?

Evan Weiner

August 18, 2024

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid celebrates with defensive end Frank Clark, right, after the NFL AFC Championship playoff football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. The Chiefs won 23-20. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

A Jackson County legislator wants the team to remain in the county.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again might have been first uttered by Robert the Bruce, the King of Scotland, as a way of inspiring his troops in 1304 and it might have worked but it is not known whether it will work for Jackson County, Missouri, Legislator Manny Abarca in his quest to keep the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs franchise in the county. Abarca wants to change a sales tax law to fund a renovation of the team’s present stadium. Abarca seems to be separating a current sales tax that pairs the Chiefs’ stadium with Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals’ home stadium. Abarca wants a 20-year extension with the sales tax reduced to one-quarter of a cent and that would go into funding the facelift of the football facility.

“I think people are going to start to realize, this is our last shot here for the Chiefs. There’s not really another opportunity for us if we lose a second vote,” Abarca said. The Chiefs’ franchise owner Clark Hunt wanted a renovated stadium in Jackson County, Missouri but on April 2^nd, Jackson County residents overwhelmingly voted against extending a sales tax that went to pay down the debt of old construction costs at the two stadiums. State legislators in Kansas passed a bill that would finance up to 70 percent of the cost of two new stadiums for pro sports franchises. The legislation targeted Hunt’s business and Royals’ owner John Sherman’s business. Kansas lawmakers are mulling over a proposal that would see STAR bonds used to help pay 75 percent of the cost of building two stadiums in Kansas. Additionally, sports gambling and lottery gaming and sales tax revenue from businesses in the stadium development districts would cover bond debt. The Kansas City stadium game continues.

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Manny Abarca