Kansas hasn’t shared key details about Chiefs’ stadium financing. Why that matters
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas withheld key bond and revenue projections for the $2.8B Chiefs plan.
- State has not yet set or announced baseline, district boundaries or debt model.
- Experts warn $2.8B STAR bonds pose rating, investor and taxpayer risk without pledge.
A 20-second standing ovation followed Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s opening remarks in a State of the State address last week, a bipartisan reaction to eight words delivered slowly for emphasis:
“Our beloved Chiefs are coming home to Kansas.”
A 28-day victory lap has accompanied the initial one-of-a-kind announcement to move the Chiefs out of Arrowhead Stadium, their home for a half-century, and across the state line. As bait, the state of Kansas is prepared to spend a record-breaking amount of public money on the team’s behalf: $2.8 billion to support construction alone.
But closing in on a month after the triumphant announcement, the state officials who brought that deal to fruition have yet to provide full clarity on the specifics of the agreement, leaving open the answer to key questions:
How exactly — or easily — will Kansas generate enough sales tax revenue to pay for the bonds? Will potential investors see them as too risky?
Kansas utilized its sales tax and revenue (STAR) bonds tool to lure the Chiefs across the state line 20 months after the four-time Super Bowl champions saw a ballot measure rejected in Jackson County. Kansas has used the financial mechanism in 23 other instances, though those examples are most similar in name.
The stadium project will dwarf the price tags of those 23 projects combined — functioning as a high-stakes stress test for an incentive tool that carries a controversial reputation.
The $2.8 billion in bonds backed by future sales tax — $1.8 billion for the stadium and nearly $1 billion for a training complex and its ancillary development — have landed experts on the opposite sides of a debate. Many have cast doubt about the project’s viability, and others have suggested it will likely pencil out, though they, too, still have questions about the logistics.
“I think it’s fair to say that they won’t have any trouble selling these bonds,” said Justin Marlowe, a professor and the director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago.
How, exactly?
The Department of Commerce’s chief legal counsel told The Bond Buyer, a trade publication, that it had enlisted Bank of America and Wells Fargo as lead underwriters on the domed stadium.
But when The Star requested a copy of the state’s 30-year debt service and revenue stream plan for the stadium development, Commerce officials declined to show their work, calling the documents “preliminary in nature” and saying they “won’t be finalized for several months.”
The response letter cited two exemptions to the Kansas Open Records Act — one that allows for draft documents to be withheld and another that lets the state conceal documents deemed “detrimental to the development of a STAR bond project.”
It’s a stark contrast from the Chiefs’ last stadium project — in 2006, when they used a Jackson County 3/8th-cent sales tax to fund the majority of renovations to Arrowhead Stadium.
Jackson County voters approved that tax, which also supported renovations at the Royals’ Kauffman Stadium, in April 2006. Those renovation plans included annual debt service and revenue projections, a graph showing all 25 years, injecting confidence into the projects’ viability.
The Kansas plan is fundamentally different — in its lack of voter involvement, its funding plan and its scarcity of granular details.
And that combination has prompted another difference: vocal detractors questioning whether the math will add up to bring the project to fruition.
Commerce Secretary David Toland has yet to announce several important decisions. Among them is setting the incentive district’s sales tax revenue baseline that will determine how much tax growth can be diverted from other government priorities to pay down STAR bond debt. Toland has the authority to use whatever year’s data he chooses.
That baseline, and the yet-to-be finalized boundaries of the two-county incentive district, are closely tied to how much money Kansas will have on hand to contribute to debt service on the 30-year bonds.
Local decisions also loom large — specifically, whether Wyandotte and Johnson County officials will commit a portion of their sales tax revenue to the project, in addition to the state money.
Those are central components of the finances of the project, but they all remain to-be-determined, or at least to-be-announced.
The same goes for the specifics of the bonds Kansas plans to issue.
Who owns the risk?
In the past, Kansas STAR bonds have not received credit ratings. Unrated bonds generally come with higher interest rates due to their inherent risk.
According to Marlowe’s analysis, a total of $800 billion in unrated municipal bonds have been issued in the U.S. over the last 10 years, with a median deal size of around $3 million.
“We’ve never seen anything anywhere near $2 billion worth of unrated bonds,” said Marlowe, who has served as an expert court witness on matters involving the municipal bond market, taxation and government accounting.
Marlowe said he would be “very surprised” if at least some portion of the stadium borrowing didn’t have to undergo a credit rating by one of the three major credit bureaus.
Kansas officials have emphatically said taxpayers won’t be left on the hook if the project fails to live up to expectations. Having no security pledge on the bonds would very likely ratchet up the cost of debt service payments, Marlowe said.
“Investors are going to see the bonds as more risky, and they’re going to price that into the yields that they demand to buy the bonds,” he said.
That overall price tag could be kept down if some party involved in the deal — Kansas, the local governments, or the Chiefs — were to set aside emergency funds, Marlowe said.
At this point, it’s unclear whether emergency funds would be set aside or which entity would step up to provide them.
Bob North, the Commerce attorney, told The Bond Buyer that an issuance is still 10 to 12 months away.
The celebration, though, has commenced full-throttle.
After her opening remarks at the State of the State address this week, Gov. Kelly turned to recognize some dignitaries in the audience: Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Christal Watson and Olathe Mayor John Bacon, local leaders she said were “instrumental in making this happen.”
Then she acknowledged one more: Chiefs team president Mark Donovan. In a crowded gallery, Donovan stood and put his palms together, an expression of gratitude.
The room full of legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, stood and applauded.
“To land the Chiefs, we put all politics aside,” Kelly said, touting its success. “We just did what was best for Kansas and for our shared future.”
This story was originally published January 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
