Royals, Chiefs on comeback trail after ballot losses
Teams have rebounded before
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Like a loss in the playoffs, voter rejection of a stadium tax plan will force the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs to reevaluate their approach.
The defeat Tuesday of a three-eighths cent sales tax to fund a new downtown Royals ballpark and renovate the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium was almost assuredly not the end of the matter. Other teams and cities have faced similar setbacks, and that hasn’t slowed a wave of stadium construction underway across the U.S.
“The next page in the playbook, if they lose this referendum, would be to threaten to move,” said Brad Humphreys, an economics professor at
West Virginia University, who researches sports stadiums.
But that doesn’t mean relocation is imminent, or even likely.
Moving to a new stadium within the same region or another state is just one of several options. Teams could tweak their plans and ask voters again.
They could build or renovate stadiums without public funds. Or they could avoid a referendum by seeking approval for public subsidies directly from a legislative body such as a city council, county commission or state legislature.
“Usually, team owners just find a new way to get money, and they’ll go the legislative route,” said Geoffrey Propheter, an associate public finance professor at the University of Colorado Denver. “Rarely do team owners just straight up leave.”
From 1990 through 2023, voters cast ballots on 57 stadium and arena proposals across the country, approving 35 and rejecting 22, according to data compiled by Propheter.
In December, Oklahoma
City voters overwhelmingly approved a 1 percent sales tax for six years to help fund a new downtown arena for the NBA’S Thunder that is expected to cost at least $900 million.
But last May, voters in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe rejected a proposal for a $2.3 billion entertainment district that would have included a new arena for the NHL’S Arizona Coyotes. The defeat marked the latest seatback for the hockey team, which underwent a 2009 bankruptcy and is currently playing in a 5,000-seat arena shared with Arizona State University.
The Coyotes haven’t given up on the Phoenix area yet. The team is looking into bidding on a 95-acre tract in north Phoenix.
Public subsidies for stadiums and arenas often get approved by elected officials without going on the ballot.
Last year, the Nashville City Council approved $760 million in local bonds to go along with $500 million in state bonds — all to help finance a new $2.1 billion football stadium for the Tennessee Titans. There was no public referendum.
Construction also began last year on a new football stadium for the Buffalo Bills that’s projected to cost more than $1.6 billion. A total of $850 million is coming from New York and Erie County, with no public referendum.
The proposal from the Royals and Chiefs went to voters because the Missouri Constitution requires a public vote on local taxes. Only voters in Jackson County got a say, because the proposed tax applied only to sales in that county.
Voter approval might not be necessary if the teams can finance their stadiums without a tax. One option is privately financed bonds, but those would still need a funding stream for repayments, said Brent Never, associate public affairs professor at the University of Missouri-kansas City.
After losing elections, some teams subsequently sidestepped voters to get new stadiums.
In 1997, voters in 11 southwestern Pennsylvania counties rejected a proposed half-cent sales tax to replace a stadium shared by the MLB’S Pirates and NFL’S Steelers with two separate facilities and to fund a convention center expansion. But the next year, a regional development district approved public financing for the new facilities without going back to voters.
Similar scenarios played out in Seattle and Milwaukee in the mid-1990s.