KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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The drama swirling around where the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals will play in 2031 and beyond has been going on for more than two and a half years.
The latest turn in the saga involves a lawsuit filed by some members of the Missouri legislature against state officials over a new financing option that passed during a special session in June.
While there’s no shortage of passion in Chiefs Kingdom or among Royals fans, patience can be another thing altogether.
“I think everybody would be happy to have a solution, get over it and just get back to winning championships in this town,” Raymore resident Brian Hupp said Friday at Chiefs training camp. “... We’re kind of tired of the states being pitted against each other as well, so let’s get to a solution. The owners need to pony up and do what they need to do, and let’s get something done here.”
Kansas City sports fans have been on a roller coaster in recent years as the teams reviewed options, pitched ideas, muddled through a failed vote then hit the brakes as state legislatures invented ways to pay for new stadiums — STAR Bonds in Kansas and Senate Bill 3, which is being contested by the Freedom Caucus, in Missouri.
“Honestly, I don't care where the stadium is,” Rachelle McConnaughey said Friday, where she took in Chiefs practice at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph. “I'm just a fan, so I'll go anywhere.”
But she definitely feels nostalgia for the existing stadiums. GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium opened in August 1972, with Kauffman Stadium opening seven months later in April 1973.
“I've grown up going to Arrowhead since I was 5 (years old), and I'm 42,” McConnaughey said. “To me, that's home, but I'll go anywhere. If they go to the Kansas side, like the rumors, it's closer for me, so I'm not going to be upset, but Arrowhead will always be home. ... As far as the Royals, again, I've been going to their games, that's home — Kauffman Stadium.”
Wherever the teams land, she hopes they keep in mind Kansas City’s tailgating culture, which has come to define fans at the sprawling Harry S. Truman Sports Complex, but she’d also like a resolution to the drama.
“For me, it is what it is, but just make a decision, like pick at this point,” McConnaughey said. “Pick — I don't care where, just pick.”
Hupp, a Royals season-ticket member, feels largely the same way with one notable exception.
"We don’t want to go downtown — don’t want to deal with the traffic, don’t want to deal with parking garages to get in and out 81 times a year," he said. "Even if we go to half of those, I still don’t want to do that. So, anywhere outside of downtown, I’m fine with. I live in Raymore, Missouri, so I’m on the southeast side of town. If they want to move it to the northwest side, I would be fine with that over driving downtown any day."
Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt understands that sentiment and fan frustration, but he didn’t sound optimistic Monday that any deals were imminent.
“I don't want to get into how close we're making a decision, because we've found over time with stadium situations that, until they're done, they're not done,” Hunt said. “There's a lot of work, a lot of moving parts, and we're working through those. Certainly, I would say we feel an urgency to bring the process to a conclusion, but that doesn't mean I can will it to happen in any specified period of time.”
When a Kansas legislative body extended the STAR Bonds authorization last month, it set a loose deadline for the end of the year to have a decision by the teams.
At that point, it will have been more than three years since Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman and the Royals first published a letter saying they hoped to move downtown.
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