PALM BEACH, Fla. — Everyone in the meeting knew the discussion was about the future, not the present. Clark Hunt, the Chiefs’ part owner, chairman and CEO, wanted to emphasize the magnitude of the conversation that day during last season.
“This is the most important project any of us in this room are working on in our careers,” Hunt said in the meeting to some of the most prominent members of the Chiefs’ organization. “We are deciding what’s the future of the stadium.”
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One of the biggest revelations from the meeting was that Hunt and team president Mark Donovan agreed that the Chiefs might play in the new home venue not named Arrowhead Stadium in less than a decade, which hasn’t happened since 1971.
Donovan shared the team’s initial discussions and expanded on the possible outcomes regarding Arrowhead’s future Tuesday during the NFL owners’ meetings.
“We’re going to take our time and make the right decision and try to do what’s best for our fans and how we enhance the experience,” Donovan said. “Can we continue to do that in Arrowhead, or do we have to build new to keep up?”
Although the Chiefs are co-tenants with the Royals in sharing their lease at the Truman Sports Complex, a deal that runs through 2031, Donovan acknowledged that the team has invested around $500,000 in a financial study to better understand which of three possibilities is the Chiefs’ best option.
“If (the Royals) end up going downtown, then we’ve got options,” Donovan said. “We can build new right beside (Arrowhead). We can renovate. Or we can build somewhere new somewhere else.
“One of the challenges that we have with that is that the Royals are on a different time frame.”
The Royals, according to multiple sources, want to build a downtown stadium and have the team play in its new venue in either 2026, ’27 or ’28.
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John Sherman, the Royals’ team owner, said earlier this month that the team is reviewing multiple sites downtown and has engaged in architecture discussions. Sherman also mentioned his love for Kauffman Stadium, the place where he had his first date with Marny, his wife. He also appreciates the historical significance of the Truman Sports Complex housing two single-sport venues side by side. The project, in part, was put together through the partnership between the late Ewing Kauffman and the late Lamar Hunt.
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“We’ve been connected to the Royals for almost 50 years,” Clark Hunt, son of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, said in November.
Sherman believes a downtown stadium for the Royals could increase the team’s business and also be a financial and entertainment enhancement for the city.
“We’re one of only 25 cities in the United States with a Major League Baseball franchise. Four cities have two, and there’s one in Canada,” Sherman said. “These are really valuable assets for a community, so I’m interested: Why shouldn’t we want to optimize the value of this asset on behalf of our community?”
In the past few months, the Chiefs and Royals, Donovan said, have had several productive conversations on how the potential of a downtown baseball stadium will impact the franchises.
“We’re trying to be as supportive as we can for them,” Donovan said of the Royals. “I think the city, (Jackson County) and the state should do whatever is best for the Royals. I don’t know what that’s going to end up being ultimately.
“They want to be downtown. This is all subject to change, but our intention is to be (at the Truman Sports Complex) through 2031 (in the current venue).”
In 2032, though, the Chiefs could be playing in front of their fans in Kansas, as developers from across the state line have sent the team proposals. In those discussions, developers have recommended multiple sites that are attractive for a state-of-the-art NFL stadium. A logical destination could be in Kansas City, Kan., near the Kansas Speedway and Children’s Mercy Park, the home venue of Sporting Kansas City.
“Pretty consistently, we get inquiries from the state of Kansas: ‘If you’re going to make a change, what if you brought the stadium here?’” Donovan said. “We’re looking at that as well.”
Just hours after Donovan expressed the Chiefs’ interest in possibly building a new stadium in Kansas, Quinton Lucas, the city’s mayor, used his Twitter account to respond, re-emphasizing the desire of he and the city’s other officials to keep it in Missouri.
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“Kansas City has proudly hosted the Chiefs since the early 1960s,” Lucas wrote on Twitter. “We look forward to working with the Chiefs, our state of Missouri partners and local officials to ensure the Chiefs remain home in Kansas City and Missouri for generations to come.”
The man who designed Arrowhead Stadium was a self-described inventor who created a board game, designed banks and was mostly self-taught. 50 seasons later, a story on how it became an iconic NFL experience.
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Arrowhead Stadium has a strong reputation in the league for two reasons: It’s known to be the loudest stadium in the league, and its rabid tailgating scene before kickoff — complete with the tantalizing smell of barbecue — is the most similar to a college football atmosphere in the south.
The venue is also in its golden era. The Chiefs, led by coach Andy Reid and superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, have hosted the AFC Championship Game the past four seasons, an NFL record. The team also partnered with the Government Employees Health Association last year for the stadium’s first-ever naming rights deal, an agreement that also runs through 2031.
“It’s Lamar’s building,” Donovan said of Arrowhead. “It’s a big factor for us. But we’re going to make the best decision. I don’t know what that decision is.”
Arrowhead Stadium is one of the league’s oldest venues, too. For operating purposes, the Chiefs spent $12 million last season on Arrowhead’s maintenance. This upcoming season, the team is projecting $9 million. That number, however, likely will increase if Kansas City is one of the cities that FIFA selects as a host site for the World Cup in 2026.
Hunt is eager to see the financial projections that will show the difference in cost between renovating the stadium, keeping the structure in place for at least another 20 years, or building a new Arrowhead in the complex if the Royals indeed move downtown and Kauffman Stadium is torn down.
“We think Arrowhead is still one of the finest stadiums in the NFL,” Hunt said in November. “The renovation that we completed about 12 years ago really brought the stadium back into the top tier. We’ve had beautiful stadiums open in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. There’ll be things, when we get to the end of our lease, that I’m sure we’ll want to incorporate into the stadium.”
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If a new Arrowhead Stadium is constructed alongside the original, the Chiefs, based on certain proposals, could be in favor of having additional features in the complex, such as restaurants, a shopping mall and various hotels. In 2007, in the middle of their championship run, the New England Patriots built Patriot Place, a complex adjacent to their home venue, Gillette Stadium. Patriot Place features 1.3 million square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment options.
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“I think a developer would look at it and say yes,” Donovan said of the possibility of building something similar to Patriot Place alongside a new Arrowhead. “When you look at it from an investment standpoint, I’m not sure Independence, Mo., is the best place to develop. It might be. That’s where the selling point across the state line is, ‘You can pick your spot.’”
If the Chiefs do pick a new spot of land and leave, Hunt understands the decision will close an era of the franchise, an almost six-decade run (since 1972) that was built, in part, by the innovation and imagination of his father.
In their pivotal meeting during the 2021 season, Hunt and Donovan, along with others, grasped that their conversation could be the beginning of the end for Arrowhead, a conclusion that, after the 2031 season, the beloved venue is demolished. If such a day arrives, the Chiefs know they would have followed their co-tenant.
“We’re great partners with the Royals,” Donovan said. “But at the end of the day, this is a monumental franchise decision for the Royals. It’s a monumental franchise decision for us.”
The Athletic’s Alec Lewis contributed to this report.
(Photo of Arrowhead Stadium: Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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