The reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs will consider leaving Arrowhead Stadium, their home since 1972, once their lease expires in 2030, Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said on Saturday.
Hunt said all options are back on the table after nearly 60% of voters in Jackson County, Missouri, said no earlier this month to a new sales tax of about a half-cent for the next 40 years to finance Arrowhead renovations and a new stadium for Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals.
“We’re definitely disappointed with how the stadium vote turned out,” Hunt said. “It was something we had worked on for several years.
“We’ll be in a situation where we go back to the drawing board. We will look at all our options going forward.”
That, Hunt said, would include a potential new venue, with other spots in the Kansas City area as possible new homes for the NFL club, which has been to four of the past five Super Bowls and won three of them, including the past two.
“We may be in a situation where we’re looking at a new stadium,” he said. “Going forward, it may make sense for us to be in a new stadium.”
Hunt says there is a sense of urgency to finalize the team’s future venue even though six years remain before their time is up at Arrowhead.
“When we started on this process three years ago, it felt like we had a very long time, a long runway with about 9.5 years left on our lease,” Hunt said. “We’re now down to 6.5 and so I do feel very much of a sense of urgency.
“We will approach it from a broader perspective going forward because time is short for us at this point and so we need to see what other options are out there for us.”
The available time can vanish in the relative blink of an eye, Hunt warned.
“Stadium development projects just take a long time and I don’t want to put a specific number on it,” he said.
– Liberia’s Hali honored –
The Chiefs and Royals have played in adjacent stadiums since the complex was completed 52 years ago, but Hunt said he and Royals owner John Sherman are looking at separate deals.
“At this point it makes sense for both of us to work independently,” Hunt said. “There’s certainly nothing to preclude us coming back and doing something together, but he also feels that sense of urgency and I know he’s eager to try to find a long-term solution, which we are as well.”
Hunt also announced that Liberian-born former Chiefs defensive end Tamba Hali, who was sent to the United States at age 10 to escape civil war in his homeland, will join the Chiefs Hall of Fame in 2024.
Hali became a US citizen in 2006, the same year he joined the Chiefs to launch a 12-year NFL career.
“A player who has had a huge impact on and off the field,” Hunt said. “A really special person with an amazing story, coming from Liberia, and we’re delighted to honor him.”
js/bb
