Chiefs and Royals have a new deadline for border-hopping Kansas stadium deal
Top Kansas lawmakers renewed a massive incentive offer for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals on Monday, reaffirming their desire to poach one or both teams from Missouri.
The Legislative Coordinating Council, or LCC, voted 7-0 to give the teams until Dec. 31, 2025, to lock in a deal with Kansas that would fund up to 70% of new stadium costs with public money.
The move, less than a month after Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed his state’s incentive package into law, further ratchets up the intensity of the border war over the two teams’ futures.
The decision to renew the offer follows a June 26 letter from Chiefs team president Mark Donovan requesting an extension of the Sales Tax and Revenue, or STAR bonds, incentive package.
Donovan has been consistent in saying the team will explore options in both states. He spoke earlier Monday with Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, and in response to a question from The Star in the afternoon, said the Chiefs have made “enough progress (in Kansas) where it made sense” to receive an extension there.
“That’s a big part of the process,” Donovan said. “We have continued our discussions in Topeka with the leaders. We’ve made good strides. At the same time, we’ve been in active discussions with our folks on the Missouri side.”
House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who repeatedly said in recent months that he opposed keeping the offer on the table past June 30, told fellow LCC members that he now believes a short-term extension makes sense.
He attributed his change of heart to a statement in Donovan’s letter that the Chiefs had submitted a proposal to the state and received no response for six weeks.
“That’s not fair to the teams,” said Hawkins, who is running for state insurance commissioner. “Doesn’t matter what team it was. That’s just not fair to the teams when they’re making proposals and they’re not getting responses back.”
The 2024 Kansas law establishing the stadiums incentive package authorizes David Toland, the lieutenant governor and commerce secretary, to negotiate a deal with one or both teams.
In an email statement thanking LCC members for extending the STAR bond deadline, Toland pushed back on accusations of impropriety.
“The Kelly-Toland administration will continue to keep the interests of the Kansas economy as its top priority in our negotiations with the teams, and will not be swayed by political pressure to give away hard-earned tax dollars to satisfy certain special interests,” Toland said.
Commerce spokesperson Patrick Lowry called it “categorically false” to say the department failed to respond to Chiefs representatives in a timely manner, pointing to “countless meetings with both teams to discuss numerous deal points as part of making proposals and counterproposals.”
The LCC approved one motion extending the underlying stadium STAR bond law through June 30, 2026. But in a separate motion, lawmakers specified that they would only consider a deal brought by Toland before the end of 2025.
Royals preference?
After the meeting, Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, told reporters that he’s not aware of an existing offer from the Chiefs or Royals to move to Kansas yet.
But he said it’s important that both teams be given a fair shake, doubling down on the suggestion that Gov. Laura Kelly and her Democratic administration have neglected the Chiefs.
“It is political,” Masterson said. “And I think most Kansans know there’s a little bit of a disconnect. I think the administration tends to favor the Royals over the Chiefs, and I think most everyone else in the conversation would say the inverse. But it would be great to have both of them.”
Will Lawrence, Kelly’s chief of staff, said GOP leaders have no room to criticize the administration’s approach to negotiations.
“I find it ironic that certain Republican legislative leaders are complaining about timeliness when they failed to meet many of their own internal deadlines on projects discussed in the LCC meeting today,” Lawrence said. “The Department of Commerce has been timely in responding to real proposals.”
In his letter to the LCC, Donovan said a Chiefs relocation to Kansas would create a “powerful engine” of growth, driving tourism and spurring billions of dollars in private development.
“We believe the foundation is in place for something truly historic — not only for our team but for the future of the state’s economy and national profile,” Donovan wrote in the letter.
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, one of two Democrats on the LCC, said she remains optimistic about Kansas’ prospects with both teams.
But when asked which of the two franchises would be more likely to pay back stadium bond debt through sales tax generated by surrounding development, she didn’t mince words.
“I would think that the Royals would have an advantage there just because of the sheer number of games,” Sykes said.
Normally, Kansas STAR bonds can only fund up to 50% of a public attraction with future tax revenue, but the specialized stadiums offer authorizes that public subsidy to climb as high as 70%.
Missouri’s offer, passed during a hectic special session last month, would fund up to 50% of new construction or stadium improvements.
One major difference between the two incentive packages is that Missouri’s plan would require a local commitment, which could come in the form of a local tax vote like the one Jackson County voters overwhelmingly rejected last April.
Kansas’ offer includes no such requirement of a local commitment. But the proposal hinges on a STAR bond project larger than any such development Kansas has supported through the incentive program before.
Although fans and lawmakers on both sides of the state line have stressed the potential economic windfall of locking in stadium deals, decades of research show stadium projects rarely earn back the amount of public aid that goes into them.
The Star sports columnist Sam McDowell contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 7, 2025 at 5:01 PM.
