‘Pure emotion' frequently drives debates on sports stadium deals

An aerial view shows Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri, home to MLB's Kansas City Royals and the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, respectively. Lawmakers in both Kansas and Missouri have pursued legislation to make hundreds of millions of dollars available for sports stadiums. (Photo by DutcherAerials via Getty Images)
In promoting his bill to fund professional sports stadiums, Missouri Republican state Sen. Kurtis Gregory warned about the potential hit to jobs and tax revenues if the state were to lose a team.
But on the floor of the Senate last week, he acknowledged that pride was also a prime motivator in his efforts to make hundreds of millions of dollars available to the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and MLB's Kansas City Royals, both of which are being courted to move several miles away into neighboring Kansas.
A former University of Missouri football player, Gregory pointed to the Missouri-Kansas rivalry that dates back to the Civil War and characterized Kansas as 'kind of an archrival.'
'We just let the state of Kansas poach, you know, really the pride and joy of the western side of the state, and I would say the entire state of Missouri?' he said in his floor speech. 'And then I would also say, what's next? What's the next thing the state of Kansas is going to try and take from us?'
Days after the 2025 legislative session ended in May, Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called a special session for lawmakers to consider stadium funding and disaster relief bills. Last week, the state Senate approved Gregory's stadium incentives bill in the middle of the night by a 19-13 vote. On Wednesday afternoon, the state House approved the measure by a 90-58 vote, sending it to the governor's desk.
The bill would fund up to 50% of construction or renovation costs and is estimated to cost about $1.5 billion over 30 years, the Missouri Independent reported.
Stateline was unable to reach Gregory for comment.
Economists have panned the ongoing stadium bidding war between Missouri and Kansas — which has offered to pay up to 70% of new stadium costs — as a waste of taxpayer dollars. But Gregory's comments highlight the emotional undercurrents frequently at play in sports stadium funding debates across the country.
Experts nearly unanimously agree that public subsidies for stadiums are a poor investment, but that hasn't slowed a wave of local and state spending for billionaire team owners.
More taxpayer money benefits pro sports owners amid 'stadium construction wave'
Washington, D.C., could spend more than $1 billion to move the Washington Commanders some seven miles from a suburb in Maryland to a new facility planned for the old RFK Stadium site, described by the team's controlling owner as the 'spiritual home' of the NFL franchise.
Geoffrey Propheter, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver who studies stadium deals, said these kinds of arguments ignore the economic reality of stadium subsidies.
'You're not talking economics. You're talking pure emotion,' he said.
Despite mounds of evidence showing the public does not fare well on stadium investments, he said lawmakers and mayors still tout the potential for jobs and new tax revenues with stadiums and arenas.
Oftentimes, teams and politicians stir fears about the possibility of losing franchises to another market to increase pressure, he said. But three of the most prominent stadium subsidy deals under consideration now — in Chicago, Kansas City and the district — involve teams looking to move within the same metro area.
'I would appreciate it if lawmakers were that transparent, and they're like, 'I don't care how much this costs, there's no price that's too high for us to pay to keep them here,'' Propheter said.
But cities and states have more at stake than raw economics, said Irwin Kishner, a New York attorney who has represented pro teams in multiple stadium deals.
He likened the stadium debate to those surrounding the Olympics: Research has found that host cities generally spend well in excess of the revenue generated by the games. But cities and nations still fiercely compete for the chance to host the high-profile event.
'It elevates the status of venues,' Kishner said. 'And I think it's very much the same thing with stadiums and arenas.'
He said cities also face potential economic consequences of lost jobs and tax revenues if teams leave altogether.
Oakland, California, for example, lost both its pro football and baseball teams to Nevada after local stadium talks fell apart. The NFL's Raiders now play in Las Vegas and MLB's A's are playing temporarily in West Sacramento, California, before moving into their under-construction stadium on the Vegas strip.
'What happened in Oakland is a classic example of what happens when a team doesn't get their building in the way they want it,' Kishner said.
And those sorts of relocations can leave lasting marks, he said, pointing to the sour feelings that still persist in Brooklyn decades after MLB's Dodgers left for Los Angeles. Other cities have similarly iconic teams, such as the NFL's Chicago Bears.
'When push comes to shove, municipalities would be embarrassed to lose a team. I mean, could you imagine the Bears playing in St. Louis as an argument?' Kishner said. 'I think Chicago would have something to say about that in a very emotional way. And by the way, these things take generations to get past.'
Currently, Chicago's stadium discussions are more localized.
After first sharing plans to build a new stadium along Lake Michigan's shore in Chicago, the Bears are now pursuing a massive football stadium development in suburban Arlington Heights. Despite introducing various tax measures aimed to benefit megaprojects such as stadiums, Illinois lawmakers ended their session on May 31 with no action on the matter.
My brain tells me it's not that big of a deal, but my heart and soul as a Chicagoan doesn't want them to leave.
– Illinois Democratic state Rep. Kam Buckner
Democratic state Rep. Kam Buckner, whose district includes parts of Chicago's South Side, said lawmakers have little appetite to invest heavily in stadiums.
The MLS' Chicago Fire just announced plans to privately finance a new $650 million professional soccer stadium in the city's South Loop — the same area the MLB's White Sox are also eyeing as they explore a new baseball stadium.
'The days of widespread public money for private stadiums without public benefit — those days are over, and that is not just a sentiment in the state of Illinois. I think this is a sentiment across the country,' Buckner said.
Still, he acknowledged the sway emotions can have in the matter. While the Bears leaving the city limits likely would not affect the region's economy, he said, it would still prove a blow to morale.
'My brain tells me it's not that big of a deal,' he said, 'but my heart and soul as a Chicagoan doesn't want them to leave.'
Missouri's stadium debate has been simmering for years now: The Royals first announced plans in 2022 to move downtown from their stadium on the outskirts of the city. And the Chiefs — who share the sprawling stadium complex with the Royals — quickly followed with talks of wanting a new or renovated stadium.
After voters in a county election last year soundly rejected extending a stadium sales tax to fund those plans, lawmakers across the border in Kansas passed legislation that would fund up to 70% of the costs of new stadiums. That measure expires at the end of June, pushing Missouri legislators to act.
Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies, said such deadlines are arbitrary and meant to exact political pressure.
While politicians once had plausible deniability about the pitfalls of stadium subsidies, the research is now overwhelmingly clear and well covered in the media, he said. (It's been nearly a decade since HBO's John Oliver dedicated an episode of his satirical news show to the folly of stadium finance.)
Kansas v. Missouri stadium battle shows how states are reigniting border wars
But politicians on both sides of the aisle continue to push stadium subsidies — whether they're touting the potential for wider real estate development or intangibles such as team pride and fears of losing franchises.
'It's this prescribed dance, where everybody sort of pretends to be doing due diligence, but at the same time, everybody knows it's going to happen,' deMause said.
He said that appears to be the case in the nation's capital.
In April, city and team officials for the Washington Commanders announced plans for a 65,000-seat stadium. The proposed deal, which must be approved by the full city council, would cost taxpayers some $1.1 billion over eight years.
But deMause's analysis of the plan determined the public will be spending well in excess of that figure because of billions in free rent and hundreds of millions in property tax breaks. He estimates taxpayers will pay or forgo at least $7.5 billion on the deal.
'Everybody in and around the D.C. Council seems to be saying, 'Yeah, it sure is a lot of money, but the mayor really wants it, so it's going to happen. It's just a matter of whether or not we can improve it some,'' he said. 'It's a little bit like saying, 'World War II is going to happen — just try and keep the death toll down.''
Last week, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser's office released a report it commissioned that projected the stadium would create billions in new economic output and local tax revenue in the coming decades — figures that were quickly disputed by skeptical economists and academics.
Still, much of the district's stadium conversation has centered on intangibles such as hometown pride and nostalgia. Even NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell waxed about his childhood memories attending games at the old RFK Stadium at an April event announcing the deal.
Sitting in front of a 'WELCOME HOME' banner at that event, the mayor said the RFK site was 'where they belong.'
'I want to start by saying welcome home,' she said.
Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.
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