How Kansas City can keep the Chiefs in Missouri - and let foreign fans foot the bill | Opinion
Kansas and Missouri are feuding over which state gets the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals. While Kansas has already offered to subsidize more than $2 billion in combined total costs for the two teams, Missouri is still devising a rival proposal after Jackson County voters handily rejected a sales tax extension that would have funded both a new city-center baseball park and extensive renovations to Arrowhead Stadium.
If Kansas wins this battle, then its taxpayers would lose, as they would be forced to shoulder the costs of two lavish new stadiums. Thankfully, Missouri still has time to craft a plan that would pay for both projects without putting the squeeze on taxpayers. Part of the solution should involve attracting international investment through an economic development tool called the EB-5 visa program.
The EB-5 visa allows foreign investors to earn a green card if they fund a project that creates at least 10 jobs at a minimum investment of $1.05 million. This investment floor is lowered to $800,000 if projects are in “targeted employment areas,” which are areas of high unemployment and happen to encompass large swaths of Jackson County.
Leveraging the EB-5 visa to fund stadiums isn’t a new concept. In 2017, EB-5 visas generated roughly $45 million in revenue to partially fund the Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida. But the program is capable of raising more than $1 billion in revenue. In New York City, for example, EB-5 investors funded roughly $1.2 billion of development in the Hudson Yards neighborhood redevelopment. If mere real estate projects can raise this amount, imagine the level of investment that a globally celebrated team such as the Kansas City Chiefs could attract. In Germany alone, the franchise boasts over 19 million fans — more than twice the population size of Missouri and Kansas combined. In a country where American football is the second most watched sport on television, officials would be crazy not to solicit German investment for improvements at Arrowhead.
In addition to Germany, the Chiefs have many fans in Austria, Switzerland and Mexico through the NFL Global Markets Program. It also helps that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are functioning as the team’s global ambassadors, with the Chiefs tight end interacting with foreign fans as Swift performs in London, Dublin and Buenos Aires. And while not as intensely celebrated as the Chiefs, the Royals could also attract sizable investments given baseball’s massive popularity in countries like Japan.
Mayor Quinton Lucas, was right to express skepticism over Kansas’ stadium proposal. In 2022, a team of economists conducted a literature review of more than 130 papers assessing the long-term ramifications of taxpayer funded stadium subsidies. They found that because sports arenas generate economic activity by diverting customers away from other restaurants and businesses within the greater metropolitan area, the perceived economic benefits of such subsidies are illusory. This raises a question: Why force Kansas City business owners to subsidize their own competition?
Rather than extracting more revenue from constituents, state and local officials should look to Kansas City’s multimillionaire mega-fans from around the world and give them a special opportunity: Make a legacy investment in your favorite team and become an American. Whether they bleed red for the Chiefs or blue for the Royals, many of these fans are likely already Kansas Citians at heart.
Sam Peak is an immigration analyst based in Washington, D.C., and a Kansas City native.