Bill introduced in Congress would ensure no tax breaks for a Royals downtown stadium
Shortly after the Royals said in October that they were studying the possibility of building a stadium in downtown Kansas City, The Star asked fans an important question.
Who should pay for it?
While there was no clear consensus in the results of that poll, 35% of people who responded said the 3/8th-cent sales tax that is still being used to fund renovations to Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums (which were completed more than a decade ago) should be extended beyond its 2031 expiration date. But 27.6% of respondents said no money or tax subsidies should be utilized in building a new stadium.
Those in the latter group may get their wish.
Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) on Tuesday introduced the No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act of 2022, which “would end the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds used to finance sports stadiums for professional teams.”
“This issue comes down to communities being held hostage,” Rep. Blumenauer said in a news release. “The NFL and these other sports leagues are a money-making machine that are rich enough to build their own facilities, and we don’t need to divert much-needed public funding to these projects. Let’s instead focus on spending our tax dollars on creating communities where all of our families can thrive.”
The Star determined a new downtown Royals stadium would cost between $500 million to $1 billion, based on recent new stadium costs in other cities.
If the bill is passed, it would become law immediately, meaning John Sherman and his Royals ownership group wouldn’t have an opportunity to use tax subsidies to build a new stadium downtown — or anywhere.
A news release from Speier said subsidies for financing professional sports stadiums since 2000 “have cost taxpayers $4.3 billion despite the billions of dollars in profits that NFL clubs and other professional sports team owners reap each year.”
That $4.3 billion figure is from a 2020 study published in the National Tax Journal. The authors looked at 57 stadiums built or renovated by professional sports teams since 2000. That included the work done at Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium.
“The evidence for large spillover gains from stadiums to the local economy is weak,” wrote the study’s authors, Austin J. Drukker, Ted Gayer and Alexander K. Gold. “Academic studies consistently find no discernible positive relationship between sports facility construction and local economic development, income growth, or job creation.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 12:31 PM.
