Royals say Missouri ‘under serious consideration,’ but won’t give stadium specifics
Lobbyists for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals on Tuesday made one last pitch to Missouri lawmakers as legislators prepared to pass an incentives package intended to keep the teams from leaving the state for Kansas.
But missing from the pitch was one vital piece of information from the Royals: Where the team would build a new stadium if they decide to stay in Missouri — or even a specific price tag.
“We have said that after our 2030 season that we would like to find a new home for the Royals. For us, that means a new stadium,” Royals lobbyist Cara Hoover told lawmakers on Tuesday. “There are a couple of locations in consideration in Missouri.”
Hoover made her comments during a roughly three-hour hearing in front of the House Economic Development Committee, which voted in favor of the incentives plan.
The Missouri House began debating the bill Wednesday morning and was expected to vote on it later in the day. If lawmakers approve the measure, it will head to Gov. Mike Kehoe’s desk.
The funding plan, if passed, would allow Missouri to offer incentives to cover up to 50% of the costs for new or improved stadiums for the teams. At the same time, Kansas is trying to lure the teams across state lines through a supercharged bonds program that could pay for up to 70% of new stadiums.
Neither team has committed to Missouri if the plan passes. But the dearth of information shared by the Royals raises a series of additional questions for the team, which has publicly weighed new locations in both Kansas and Missouri.
The lack of details stands in sharp contrast to proposed plans from the Chiefs, which lobbyist Rich AuBuchon outlined during two public hearings over the past week. If the Chiefs stay in Missouri, the team wants a $1.15 billion renovation of Arrowhead Stadium in Jackson County, AuBuchon said.
A spokesperson for the Royals did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jewell Patek, another Royals lobbyist, roughly estimated during a Senate hearing last week that construction of a new Royals stadium and surrounding district would cost between $1 billion and $2 billion.
The Chiefs and Royals are planning to decide this month where to secure their future homes, their lobbyists told lawmakers. For Missouri’s pitch to work out, the teams also need funding commitments from local governments, according to the language of the incentives proposal.
The shortage of location-specific information from the Royals could put pressure on officials in both Jackson County and Clay County, two counties that have been floated as potential stadium spots.
But while the team hasn’t shared specifics as of now, the Missouri plan wouldn’t just hand the team a blank check.
The teams would have to prove to the Missouri Department of Economic Development that their stadium plans qualify for the new incentives program. The proposal sets a minimum project cost of $500 million to qualify and stadiums must have a seating capacity of more than 30,000.
Kansas vs. Missouri stadium options
The Royals’ talks with Kansas City officials have largely concentrated on a site at Washington Square Park. City officials, including Mayor Quinton Lucas and City Manager Mario Vasquez, have touted the downtown location as the perfect spot for the team.
“My personal preference, of course, is for downtown – for baseball to go to the Washington Square Park site, which I think is well-suited for it,” Vasquez told The Star on Friday.
But the Royals have also had conversations about other Missouri locations, including North Kansas City in Clay County, The Star previously reported. State lawmakers recently approved a bill to create a Clay County sports complex authority in the hopes of potentially luring the team to the Northland.
Clay County Presiding Commissioner Jerry Nolte told The Star at the state Capitol that while he would like more information from the teams, lawmakers needed to approve the incentives plan before specific locations could be negotiated and decided on.
“It doesn’t bother me because I also have confidence that our particular location is really great,” said Nolte, a Republican.
However, revelations about a recent real estate deal tied to an Overland Park site in Kansas have only intensified speculation about the Royals’ intentions — and their preferred stadium location.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Rep. John Martin, a Columbia Republican, pressed Hoover for more information about the Kansas real estate deal. The team had previously confirmed that a Royals affiliate bought the mortgage for the former Sprint campus, now Aspiria, through “an arms-length bidding process.”
“I will tell you that does not mean that Missouri is not under serious consideration,” Hoover said in response to Martin’s question. She did not provide additional details about the purchase.
One person who testified against the plan was Patrick Tuohey, a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Tuohey said the teams were just trying to get more money out of Missouri and Kansas lawmakers.
“They are telling us, if you want us to stay, if you want our love, it’s going to cost you,” said Tuohey, who is a regular opinion correspondent for The Star but wasn’t commenting in that capacity.
“And there’s a word for that, and it’s nothing that the Missouri legislature should participate in.”
Final approval of the Missouri plan is not a certainty. But the bill faces a significantly easier road during Wednesday’s scheduled House vote than in the Senate, where it ran into hours of closed-door negotiations before senators passed it just before 2:30 a.m. Thursday.
As the bill inches closer to becoming law, the burden of keeping the teams in Missouri will likely shift to local officials in both Jackson and Clay counties. Local commitments could come in the form of a sales tax vote in either county, just more than a year after a similar stadiums sales tax failed in Jackson County.
As for the Chiefs and Royals, their lobbyists pressed state lawmakers to approve the statewide plan, saying it makes the state competitive with Kansas.
“There are plenty of other states that are providing significant investment. We would not be the only one,” said AuBuchon, the Chiefs lobbyist. “The plan is competitive with Kansas. It’s not as much, but it is a bold and competitive plan to keep the Kansas City Chiefs in the state of Missouri.”
The Star’s Mike Hendricks and Chris Higgins contributed reporting.
This story was originally published June 10, 2025 at 6:07 PM.
