Amendment 2 was approved at the ballot boxes on November 5th, paving the way for sports betting in the Show Me State. However, what many voters may not have realized is that its passage may very well keep the Super Bowl champion Chiefs in Kansas City, Missouri, instead of moving to Kansas City, Kansas.
Narrow Passage
The political action committee, Winning for Missouri Education, was formed at the behest of Missouri’s six professional sports franchises and enjoyed over $40 million in campaign contributions from industry powerhouses FanDuel and DraftKings.
The PAC’s sole purpose was to inform Missourians about the financial benefits of passing sports betting legislation in the state. The taxes derived from sports betting operators’ revenues would be earmarked for the state’s education system, thereby removing the onus on taxpayers to contribute more of their hard-earned dollars to the taxman.
The six professional sports franchises, including the Kansas City Chiefs, were in favor of sports betting because it would allow the teams a previously untapped revenue stream when they partner with the sports betting operators and become the “Official sports betting partner of DraftKings (or FanDuel, Caesars, BetMGM, etc.).”
Sports betting sites always find new markets attractive. In this case, FanDuel and DraftKings were leading the charge in Missouri, eyeing the two untethered licenses that would become available should sports betting be passed by the voters. All the other licenses would be tethered to one of the land-based casinos or professional sports franchises, meaning those sports betting operators would need to share some of their proceeds with whatever entity they partnered with, while those with untethered licenses would not.
Ultimately, the blizzard of pro-sports betting advertising unleashed by the Winning for Missouri Education cohort worked, albeit barely, as 50.1% of the voters approved sports betting at the ballot box, just enough for its passage. This clears the way for a launch by December 1, 2025, but it will likely happen sooner.
Missouri Gaming Commission chairman Jan Zimmerman said, “The constitutional language says we have to be up and running by Dec. 1 of 2025, but it’s our hope we get there much sooner than that. Optimistically, in order to get through all those administrative processes, we’re looking mid-to-late summer (2025) to get all of those things in place.”
Decision Time
Neighboring Kansas has been pining to bring the Chiefs to its own Kansas City area, only minutes away from Kansas City, Missouri. The state has even gone as far as issuing STAR Bonds to pay for a good portion of the publicly funded stadium, something the citizens of Kansas City, Missouri, were reluctant to do.
The Chiefs’ lease at Arrowhead Stadium expires in January 2031, which means a decision determining where they will spend the next several decades needs to be made now. Stadiums take years to build, and so do renovations if they choose to stay in their current digs.
Now that Amendment 2 has been passed by the voters, the Chiefs will gain access to the same revenue stream in Missouri that is available in Kansas after the Sunflower State launched sports betting in September 2022. That alone could be enough incentive to keep the Chiefs in Kansas City, Missouri, and allow their Missouri fans to breathe a sigh of relief.
Calculators
