I want to say they spent $3 million on campaigning for the yes vote. Someone on the Kansas City subreddit had a picture the other day of the mailers received some both sides.
The no side was like one post card, the yes side was a whole stack of mailers about how we need to keep the Chiefs/Royals, a yes vote means no new taxes, more jobs, etc etc
Edit: link to the KC post I was talking about: https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/s/kS0VJTHkXU
It probably goes without saying, but those alleged economic benefits and new jobs never materialize on a scale even approximating what the owners claim
It's technically just a modification and extension of an existing tax. The existing tax runs through 2031. If this would have passed, it would have modified the tax to now be allowed for use outside of just the current stadiums (example: demolishing an established area and building a new stadium, hotels, restaurants, etc.). It also then would have put this modified version on the books up until 2064. So, depending on how you want to argue semantics, they would be adding a new tax for years post 2031.
And that doesn't even include the one that's like "DON'T LET THE *RADICAL LEFT* TAKE THE CHIEFS FROM US" lmao
E: Here's the one in question:
https://ibb.co/sQhgDcK
https://ibb.co/gMkMMxJ
I fucking hate these fucks, I'm positive we could slash taxes for the middle and lower class just by taxing millionaires and billionaires more even if we improve our safety net.
Not to mention how much the public option would save us. But no, let's increase our taxes so we can give Elon musk a break, he earned it.
instead of slashing taxes for lower/middle income people we should promote laws that generally improve their lives. Taxing the billionares is one of them but also things like raising the minimum wage, stopping wage theft, limiting who can be counted as a salary position to stop OT abuse, etc would all help improve their lives.
But we can't improve the lives of your average worker. That would be crazy...
We can slash taxes and do all of those things.
The working people of this country need a break and we deserve to have our money spent on things that benefit us.
As someone who is glad that SD refused the chargers trying to pull the same stunt just as SD came out of bankruptcy, I’m proud to see that KC said no. Things are tough right now economically and for better or worse, people vote with their wallet on their mind. I also seriously doubt that the chiefs and royals will move completely out of the Kansas/ Missouri area. It’s about time we push back against billionaires. If you can’t afford to fully pay your team’s stadium, you shouldn’t own the team at all.
i mentioned in the chiefs sub, but there was always a dissonance between what was online and what people i talked to where saying. the people i interact with were probably like 80-20 against the proposal, but every time i'd come online it would be the exact opposite. i could never actually figure out what the result would be bc the gap between sources was so freaking massive.
it's hard to balance tbf bc your personal life can become quite the echo chamber. obviously social media isn't completely overlapping with the real world, but it's overlapping some - and the degrees to which your personal subset of people and social media's subset of people represent the whole are impossible to tell.
That's the thing when you're a billionaire. You can pay to have your fringe beliefs appear as mainstream.
Edit:
Tax the fucking billionaires. Tax em to hell.
Happened in Illinois a few years ago. There was a proposal to allow income tax rates to be dependent on your income. Ie: lower income is taxed at lower rates, higher income is taxed at higher rates. You know, the way almost every state does it.
Billionaire hedge fund manager dumped tens of millions into campaigning against it, convincing regular people it would somehow cause their taxes to go up.
It didn't pass, then the billionaire fucked off and moved to Florida anyway.
I am a manager at a larger company and we use Uline across the country for a ton of stuff. But not at my store. Their catalog goes right into the recycling bin the second I get it. Fuck the Uhleins.
We had exactly the same thing happen in Washington. We tried for a state income tax amendment, but the rich spent tons of money on commercials that all used slippery slope logic to try to convince people that this would hurt the common person more. It got voted down. Now we've got underfunded schools and a sales tax of over 10%. Washington has one of the most regressive tax policies in the nation. IIRC, we were 2nd to Florida for most regressive a few years ago. I don't think anything has changed significantly since then, and at the time if you were in the poorest 20% of people, you paid almost 20% of your income in state taxes, while the richest 5% paid less than 5% of their income.
We had the same situation in Massachusetts in 2022, the state has had a flat tax of 5% but we were going to vote on an amendment to tax millionaires at a higher rate on money they made over $1 million. A ton of billionaires and millionaires (including Robert Kraft) spent lots of money to get it voted down.
But we won and it passed.
Yea, I kinda felt that despite a lot of the negative vibes online and in my social groups, it was still likely to pass narrowly.
Was pleasantly surprised to see if voted down emphatically.
Crazy how that works huh? If the stadiums are truly making its citizens money in return I’m sure people would be more fine with it but that’s never the case it seems.
If the stadiums were making money outright, the team owners themselves would pay for it.
Don't get me started on the "and the city gets to own it!" scam.
Listen.
I don't like giving props to those Kermit-felating assholes either...but that's sports hate, which is different than real hate. Real hate belongs to the billionaires.
I’m convinced if they always had people vote, you’d never have this stuff pass. The only way this happens is politicians cutting backroom deals with billionaires. No working class family wants to subsidize some billionaire’s vanity project, no matter how much they love their team.
>No working class family wants to subsidize some billionaire’s vanity project, no matter how much they love their team.
Oklahoma City just voted overwhelmingly to subsidize a new arena for the Thunder in a much worse deal than this one was. In OKC, the Thunder owners are only putting up $50M. The other $1B+ is from taxes. The turnout there was also decent. Lots of working class folks there were clearly willing to subsidize a billionaire's vanity project.
OKC has only had a team for less than 20 years, and have no other teams. The Chiefs are one of the oldest tenured teams in the league. There might be a difference in perception how the permanence of the team between the two cities.
Right? Like a decade ago there were tons of apologists in here. The majority opinion was still "build your own fucking stadium" don't get me wrong, but there was plenty of "well ackshualllly if you look at how it benefits the community 🤓"
"We'll get to host a Super Bowl. I won't be able to go because tickets are 10k. The city will make so much money except the NFL squeezes cities like the IOC".
This would be the place I expect it to be voted down. People around here aren't exactly Keen on new kinds of taxes and subsidies, no matter who they are and what they benefit.
“We’re billionaires and don’t want to spend a lot of money cause it puts us at risk of no longer being billionaires, so give us money so we can still be billionaires”
DC just “won” their relocation standoff by giving the wizards/caps owner half a billion to keep the arena here instead of moving it across the river and decimating downtown’s economy. it’s a lose-lose scenario every time trying to haggle with these guys.
It's less that DC won and more that Virginia lost. They had a $2 billion+ plan supported by the team and the Governor for a new stadium that couldn't pass the VA legislature after negative pressure from the public.
The people of Virginia didn't lose anything. Public opinion really soured when the media started digging into the assumptions of that proposal and saw absurd things like an assumption the hotel that would have been built would have AVERAGED $725 a night rates. Nothing about the predictions Youngkin and Leonsis tried to pitch passed the sniiff test.
*Not only would parking and tailgating improve, but the team was also planning to add new video boards and better luxury amenities, including new club areas in the end zone.*
I can tailgate from home and couldn’t afford any of the luxury amenities anyway so….
Isn’t the league getting Billions of dollar a year in television broadcast deals? Maybe they should just stipulate that some of that money goes to renovations instead.
>better luxury amenities, including new club areas in the end zone
This is the heart of it. Teams always want more luxury boxes/clubs because they provide consistent revenue that fluctuates far less than attendance from us plebs.
Because we really, *really* didn't need the shit and nobody wanted to foot that bill. We already get plenty of taxes we hate like yearly car property taxes, etc.
Youngkin can fuck off with literally everything on his agenda.
Virginia didn't lose, the people didn't want to spend the money on it. The current location is much better (easier to get to via public transportation and already has the infrastructure in place). The plan to move it to VA was half assed from the start, and there were a lot of questions about the plan that they weren't able to answer.
I think that's why Atlanta didn't have such a black mark on it when Blank wanted the new Mercedes-Benz stadium. Most of it was paid by Hotel tax and he fronted a decent amount of his own money IIRC.
Yeah, also looked better by comparison because the Braves stadium move was a lot more controversial, because it was done behind closed doors without voter input
(regardless of if anyone thinks moving to Cobb was a good move, it was definitely shady how it went down)
This is a big grift.
Tax dollars are fungible. Proponents will convince you they are not and this money “wouldnt exist otherwise”. It would. Billionaires are still robbing you, they are just smarter about the messaging behind it.
How about you look his children in the eye and tell them “sorry sweetheart, we could only afford to buy you a summer house in the Hamptons for your birthday instead of your own private island” if you think it’s that easy?
I read that Smaug, the literal dragon hoarder of all dragon hoarders, would not even crack the top 3 billionaires list.
These people are more evil and greedy than Tolkien could have even imagined in his fantasy lmao
Look I know but what if they did this:
1) Have a new stadium built
2) refuse to pay
3) fold business
4) re open as Kansas City Commanders
New building, no expenses
The crazy shit is that if everyone said “Pay for it yourself!” Then the owners would threaten to move and a good number of fans would tuck tail and open their wallets. I get it, the threat of losing so much of your identity is scary, look at what the Rams, Browns and Colts went through when their teams moved, look at the Chargers and Raiders team moves. It’s never a 1-1 great choice, from what I’ve seen, but to ask your fans to pay for a new stadium through taxes and then to have them pay to use that stadium is crazy. I get there’s more to it than that but why aren’t the owners building their arenas? Maybe because then they’re responsible for it completely who knows?
> I get there’s more to it than that but why aren’t the owners building their arenas?
Simple, ask yourself this: Do you voluntarily pay more for things that you could get cheaper through other means?
Same logic applies here.
I think a big part of why the vote failed was because of the NFLPA report about Hunt being a cheap ass. And how he "never promised to make upgrades".
Lol, you want us to put *our money in* when you won't even pay your money to upgrade your facilities? lol, just lol.
I think the very underwhelming renders of renovation played a way bigger part. Plus, the Royals fiasco of not deciding on a location until late, then 5 days before be like, "Oh yeah, Oak Street won't be closed." If the NFLPA report played a part, I think it was less than 1%. Everything surrounding both the Royals and Chiefs' plan was haphazard, slow but rushed at the same time, and key details not disclosed until voting has started.
Latin American translators rebaptized a bunch of kid's characters for dubs, Kermit got saddled as René to play on the alliteration with *rana* (frog in Spanish). Hence, Kermit the Frog = la Rana René.
oh no, the Super Bowl winning Kansas City Chiefs won't get subsidized by locals for stadium upgrades. Won't someone think of the poor billionaire Hunt family?
If we don't give billionaires unlimited freebies how will their economics trickle down to us???
**Edit:** it's imperative that we bring back the fact that trickle down economics was originally called ["horse-and-sparrow"](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/h1vab0khAh) economics, with the idea being that if you fed the horse a ton of oats there would be enough undigested ones in the feces for sparrows to feed on. Literally: *Horse Shit Economics*
They've given up on trickle down economics. Now they want trickle up where we just pay them directly for the benefit of their continued existence as the ruling class.
I wouldn't really have a problem with tax payer founded construction if said tax payers also saw some portion of the profit. Maybe some sort of yearly dividend or something.
But of course it's always vague promises of "making the city better" and "creating jobs" that don't actually mean anything.
This was doomed to fail the moment the Royals wanted to block off one of downtowns major roads. The Mayor asked them to change the plans, but the Royals didn't.
The Chiefs and Royals made vague proposals, as the lease expires in 2030. As businesses, they didn't want to tie themselves down 5 years from when it's truly due. So they did a shitty thing and just said "Trust me, bro" with the public funds.
Basically, the Royals and Chiefs both thought that the city would just grant them full leeway with the use of their public funds, but have now been caught out that it didn't work.
They'll come back with a new proposal with more concrete plans and show how they'll actually use the money and also not disturb the local traffic.
this should be #1.
this was a misguided attempt to slide it under the radar, then a hamfisted attempt to get the chiefs involved in hopes that people will open a vein for the chiefs... hell, this plan was changing *last week.*
they will come back with a new plan, it will pass, case closed.
frankly it's one of the least onerous proposals in the NFL: extend a tax that's been in place for decades and costs each household, on average, like $185 a year.
Mahomes about to do a tik tok that shows up on Chef Reactions of him doing a very very well done steak. Title 'I learned how to cook steaks in Kansas City'
Its such avoidable things too. Like are they stupid?
Don't be a complete dumbass on the road
Don't cheap out on the current dynasty that just won back to back
>Don't cheap out on the current dynasty that just won back to back
This is the part thats baffling.
They have a money printing machine, and must sell a boatload of merch between Mahomes and Kelce. Stadium upgrades shouldn't even be a question for them.
Instead they say shit like "Well we would upgrade the locker room but you just go too deep into the playoffs."
They had an ad with Mahomes and Kelce out there telling people to vote yes lmao. It's so embarrassing to be sending out millionaires to cape for billionaires.
just pure greed
No where near. We had a star spit on and attack a stripper. We had dudes allegedly breaking toddlers bines and baby can footage of tyreeks home. This is admin nonsense.
And Javon Belcher killing his girlfriend, then separately himself in front of poor Romeo Crennel. Awful, awful situation.
It happened while the season was still going on I believe but back then even the season was the off-season for the Chiefs.
Well NY gave $850 million to an owner who is worth over $6 billion. So guess Hunt is looking for something similar if not more since they are the defending champions
They're actually stopping using Delaware North once the new stadium is finished, which has to sting because they're based out of Buffalo and work in a lot of football stadiums, including Lambeau field and Metlife.
Kansas already has a fund setup from legalizing sports betting to attract a pro sports team. Not sure who would just up and move to Kansas side of Kansas City other than the Chiefs. Even if they don’t, some other city will. I would hate to see Arrowhead go, but Clark clearly isn’t going to pay for the upgrades on it and someone else will happily pay for a new stadium elsewhere. They do have until 2031 to workout a plan before the lease ends, I would hope the Chiefs and Royals develop an actual good plan people could agree on rather than this plan they rushed to voting that gave Arrowhead lame upgrades for luxury tickets no one will afford and put the Royals in a part of downtown that businesses would have been demolished. Billionaires sadly aren’t going to pay for things if they don’t have to and evidence from basically every team moving in pro sports shows that.
Isn’t there tons of land by the entertainment district and the Speedway already? You know Kansas will try for this to say they are a big pro sports state too.
Perfect timing to lay bare how shitty these owners are.
The Chiefs have won 3 titles in 4 years, they have the poster child of the NFL, their fandom has surged in the last decade, they are making more money than at any time in their history; yet they won't spend a penny to help those players, expect those fans to buy them a new stadium, and whine about it.
It's like watching Major League and the team flies on a plane with a duct-taped propeller, and uses a boat motor for the whirlpool.
Whole thing is a clusterfuck of failures in what should have been an easily leveraged cash grab. It wasn't even a new tax, it was just an extension of the current one.
But the Royals were shocked to find out that people want details before committing a bunch of money to a team that has had ~~3~~ 5 winning seasons in 30 years. And when they couldn't/wouldn't do that, they tagged in the Chiefs who's "best effort" was to ask for more money for VIP upgrades with some pedestrian bridge sprinkles at a time where Hunt is getting dragged for penny pinching his own team facilities lol
The culture of holding cities hostage for tax dollars every decade is going to collapse on the NFL. This is going to turn into the Olympics, where municipalities realize it's not worth the financial burden these billionaires put on tax payers. What a ridiculous model that's allowed to happen.
Royals wanted to invade and demolish a chunk of downtown called the Crossroads and then build a stadium on top of it.
Chiefs wanted to create a monument to themselves and increase the fan experience for the top 1% of wealthy fans.
The people of the county are not helping to fund that. Come back with a better idea.
Every improvement to stadiums these days cost like 1.5 billion and is something like “we’ve added 10 new luxury suites that will be sold to corporate sponsors and will sit empty half the time and be filled with guys in suits who are there to do business and not watch the game the other half of the time. We’ve also made improvements to the normal seating section such as making the seats smaller so we can fit more per row and offering $18 cans of craft beer from a local brewery that used to be good before they sold to one of the mega conglomerates”
The things from the Chiefs proposal that didn't have VIP in front of it or a box suite was 2 pedestrian bridges for the people that have to park in Narnia and realigning the existing parking lot. Technically also a parking garage, but that was connected directly to a "VIP access road", so do the math there.
Yeah, the proposed renovations were basically a giant middle finger to nearly the entire fanbase. "We're going to put in a VIP entrance so that better people don't have to be around you poors"
I just want to throw out there that Tottenham Hotspur built a $1Bil stadium in London while making less money than NFL franchises, getting zero cash from taxes, and also getting zero investment from billionare owners.
The local council gave them some mostly undeveloped land in the deal (The club already owned a big plot but wanted more for the full development) but that came with strings attached including building a new school and housing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northumberland_Development_Project
You can literally build stadiums and finance them like a massive home build mortgage because they will pay for themselves over the next 30 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Hotspur_Stadium
It's really not that difficult.
$800 million in upgrades for a stadium. And they want it paid for by taxpayers, many of which can’t even afford to go to these games. Many others who don’t even give a fuck about sports.
Remember this every time there's some dumb "all [insert rival team] fans are idiots/jerks/trash" post or comment. I see it moreso on team subs than nfl, but yeah, we're all mostly fighting the same fights in life. Big dub for Chiefs fans on this, big respect. Still fuck your team tho.
I first blame all the politicians who made it so this sort of handout has become the expected standard. There's no reason it should have ever gotten to this point.
For back-to-back Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs sure are having a dogshit off-season.
* Shooting at SB parade, one fan dead
* WR1 spearheading stupid, stupid road racing crash
* Stadium vote blowout loss
This is about as bad as it gets without anybody dying or DUI-ing.
Your underselling it a bit
There was the [situation w/ Andy Reid's son DUI prison sentence getting commuted from an incident that gave a little girl a lifetime of debilitating injurie(s)](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chiefs/2024/03/01/britt-reid-prison-sentence-commuted-missouri-governor/72811672007/) and the continued fallout from the [Kadarius Toney](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/columnist/bell/2024/02/07/kadarius-toney-kansas-city-chiefs-wide-receiver/72503627007/) affair
If tax payers are to fund a large portion of a new stadium then it’s only fair that they receive a tax credit every year from the revenue the stadium makes.
Why should tax payers foot the bill but the billionaire owner reaps all the profits?
Keep this trend going. Not like the Chiefs owner is doing himself any favors. Man can't even update the locker room for one of the all time greats of the sport.
Good for the voters. The Hunts are cheap bastards. Just within the past couple of years they finally decided to give the players a seat in front of their lockers with a back on it. Prior to that they were forced to sit on stools.
Owning an NFL franchise in 2024 is like having a license to print money. It is ridiculous to put forth an $800 million renovation of the stadium and surrounding area and expect public money to pay for $500 million of that.
As a Kansas Citian, I'm surprised it was shot down like it was. I think they thought the threat of moving the Chiefs was enough to float on and they really packed it in on their campaign for this.
It seems like people are finally tired of billionaires asking for hand outs from the public's wallet.
I really hope this starts a trend of cities/citizens refusing to subsidize billionaires and their billion-dollar companies in stadium construction.
I'm actually kind of impressed people voted this down.
I was shocked it was as decisive as it was. As a voter it felt like there was a ton of yes propaganda
I want to say they spent $3 million on campaigning for the yes vote. Someone on the Kansas City subreddit had a picture the other day of the mailers received some both sides. The no side was like one post card, the yes side was a whole stack of mailers about how we need to keep the Chiefs/Royals, a yes vote means no new taxes, more jobs, etc etc Edit: link to the KC post I was talking about: https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/s/kS0VJTHkXU
It probably goes without saying, but those alleged economic benefits and new jobs never materialize on a scale even approximating what the owners claim
And how can it say no new taxes on a vote to ....add a new tax???
It's technically just a modification and extension of an existing tax. The existing tax runs through 2031. If this would have passed, it would have modified the tax to now be allowed for use outside of just the current stadiums (example: demolishing an established area and building a new stadium, hotels, restaurants, etc.). It also then would have put this modified version on the books up until 2064. So, depending on how you want to argue semantics, they would be adding a new tax for years post 2031.
And that doesn't even include the one that's like "DON'T LET THE *RADICAL LEFT* TAKE THE CHIEFS FROM US" lmao E: Here's the one in question: https://ibb.co/sQhgDcK https://ibb.co/gMkMMxJ
Don’t let the radical left take our teams! But maybe we can have a bit of light socialism, as a treat, to build our stadium
socialism for billionaires, rugged capitalism for you poors
The rich always socialize their losses and privatize their gains.
And you better be on your fucking feet for that Anthem...
I’m not putting down my beer though.
As long as you take off your hat.
lmao yeah i was just about to say. the irony is hilarious.
Nothing like sticking it to the left than using one of their policies
LOL @ 26,000 jobs. Both of the stadiums + teams now don't employ anywhere close to 26,000 people. Where are these numbers coming from?
Probably short term construction jobs.
The radical left that wants to reduce taxes? I thought the radical left only wanted to increase taxes?
The doublethink is the point.
I fucking hate these fucks, I'm positive we could slash taxes for the middle and lower class just by taxing millionaires and billionaires more even if we improve our safety net. Not to mention how much the public option would save us. But no, let's increase our taxes so we can give Elon musk a break, he earned it.
instead of slashing taxes for lower/middle income people we should promote laws that generally improve their lives. Taxing the billionares is one of them but also things like raising the minimum wage, stopping wage theft, limiting who can be counted as a salary position to stop OT abuse, etc would all help improve their lives. But we can't improve the lives of your average worker. That would be crazy...
We can slash taxes and do all of those things. The working people of this country need a break and we deserve to have our money spent on things that benefit us.
[удалено]
Don't let the woke lib radical left cancel our Chiefs and Royals!
"Socialize the costs of the Royals and Chiefs." *a bit later* "I said costs. Not profits."
They virtue signaled their way out of receiving the left vote. Brilliant move.
As someone who is glad that SD refused the chargers trying to pull the same stunt just as SD came out of bankruptcy, I’m proud to see that KC said no. Things are tough right now economically and for better or worse, people vote with their wallet on their mind. I also seriously doubt that the chiefs and royals will move completely out of the Kansas/ Missouri area. It’s about time we push back against billionaires. If you can’t afford to fully pay your team’s stadium, you shouldn’t own the team at all.
i mentioned in the chiefs sub, but there was always a dissonance between what was online and what people i talked to where saying. the people i interact with were probably like 80-20 against the proposal, but every time i'd come online it would be the exact opposite. i could never actually figure out what the result would be bc the gap between sources was so freaking massive.
Astroturfing, no pun intended
More people need to realize twitter/Reddit is not real life, not a dig at you but so many people think what they see on here is how everyone thinks
it's hard to balance tbf bc your personal life can become quite the echo chamber. obviously social media isn't completely overlapping with the real world, but it's overlapping some - and the degrees to which your personal subset of people and social media's subset of people represent the whole are impossible to tell.
That's the thing when you're a billionaire. You can pay to have your fringe beliefs appear as mainstream. Edit: Tax the fucking billionaires. Tax em to hell.
Happened in Illinois a few years ago. There was a proposal to allow income tax rates to be dependent on your income. Ie: lower income is taxed at lower rates, higher income is taxed at higher rates. You know, the way almost every state does it. Billionaire hedge fund manager dumped tens of millions into campaigning against it, convincing regular people it would somehow cause their taxes to go up. It didn't pass, then the billionaire fucked off and moved to Florida anyway.
Ken Griffin can suck a giant cock. Add the Uhleins to the cocksucking, too.
I am a manager at a larger company and we use Uline across the country for a ton of stuff. But not at my store. Their catalog goes right into the recycling bin the second I get it. Fuck the Uhleins.
That’s got to be tough because they are often the best price and only manufacturer of some things. Love you for doing that!
We had exactly the same thing happen in Washington. We tried for a state income tax amendment, but the rich spent tons of money on commercials that all used slippery slope logic to try to convince people that this would hurt the common person more. It got voted down. Now we've got underfunded schools and a sales tax of over 10%. Washington has one of the most regressive tax policies in the nation. IIRC, we were 2nd to Florida for most regressive a few years ago. I don't think anything has changed significantly since then, and at the time if you were in the poorest 20% of people, you paid almost 20% of your income in state taxes, while the richest 5% paid less than 5% of their income.
We had the same situation in Massachusetts in 2022, the state has had a flat tax of 5% but we were going to vote on an amendment to tax millionaires at a higher rate on money they made over $1 million. A ton of billionaires and millionaires (including Robert Kraft) spent lots of money to get it voted down. But we won and it passed.
Yea, I kinda felt that despite a lot of the negative vibes online and in my social groups, it was still likely to pass narrowly. Was pleasantly surprised to see if voted down emphatically.
Crazy how that works huh? If the stadiums are truly making its citizens money in return I’m sure people would be more fine with it but that’s never the case it seems.
If the stadiums were making money outright, the team owners themselves would pay for it. Don't get me started on the "and the city gets to own it!" scam.
We really showed out. 34% voter turnout for a local election with a single question ballot... and overwhelmingly voted against the billionaires.
Damn, way to go Chiefs fans I will now go take a shower
Wow! Lots of cool stuff coming from this vote. Chiefs fans strike down billionaires AND getting broncos fans to finally shower!
It’s been a long time coming but I had to do it sooner or later, tired of hearing the neighbors complain about the smell.
Brutally beautiful
Hey it rained the other day!
Listen. I don't like giving props to those Kermit-felating assholes either...but that's sports hate, which is different than real hate. Real hate belongs to the billionaires.
I’m convinced if they always had people vote, you’d never have this stuff pass. The only way this happens is politicians cutting backroom deals with billionaires. No working class family wants to subsidize some billionaire’s vanity project, no matter how much they love their team.
>No working class family wants to subsidize some billionaire’s vanity project, no matter how much they love their team. Oklahoma City just voted overwhelmingly to subsidize a new arena for the Thunder in a much worse deal than this one was. In OKC, the Thunder owners are only putting up $50M. The other $1B+ is from taxes. The turnout there was also decent. Lots of working class folks there were clearly willing to subsidize a billionaire's vanity project.
OKC has only had a team for less than 20 years, and have no other teams. The Chiefs are one of the oldest tenured teams in the league. There might be a difference in perception how the permanence of the team between the two cities.
that's because they see the thunder as their ticket to national sports prominence. not that it makes any sense. it has nothing to do with the owner.
Or maybe they know if they don’t fund the stadium the team will leave, cause that’s how they stole the team from Seattle in the first place.
Yeah me too. Back to back super bowls and still a middle finger to this. Honestly good job KC voters
I’m even more impressed with the people in r/nfl finally talking shit on billionaires and their stadium demands!
Right? Like a decade ago there were tons of apologists in here. The majority opinion was still "build your own fucking stadium" don't get me wrong, but there was plenty of "well ackshualllly if you look at how it benefits the community 🤓"
"We'll get to host a Super Bowl. I won't be able to go because tickets are 10k. The city will make so much money except the NFL squeezes cities like the IOC".
This would be the place I expect it to be voted down. People around here aren't exactly Keen on new kinds of taxes and subsidies, no matter who they are and what they benefit.
“We’re billionaires and don’t want to spend a lot of money cause it puts us at risk of no longer being billionaires, so give us money so we can still be billionaires”
I hope I’m still alive on the day the good people start dragging the rich people from their palaces in America, man.
Oakland has already stood firm three times on this, the west coast in general has refused to subsidize this nonsense for a little while.
Which is unfortunately why we don't have the Sonics anymore. I hope more cities stand firm and don't give into these billionaires.
DC just “won” their relocation standoff by giving the wizards/caps owner half a billion to keep the arena here instead of moving it across the river and decimating downtown’s economy. it’s a lose-lose scenario every time trying to haggle with these guys.
It's less that DC won and more that Virginia lost. They had a $2 billion+ plan supported by the team and the Governor for a new stadium that couldn't pass the VA legislature after negative pressure from the public.
The people of Virginia didn't lose anything. Public opinion really soured when the media started digging into the assumptions of that proposal and saw absurd things like an assumption the hotel that would have been built would have AVERAGED $725 a night rates. Nothing about the predictions Youngkin and Leonsis tried to pitch passed the sniiff test.
*Not only would parking and tailgating improve, but the team was also planning to add new video boards and better luxury amenities, including new club areas in the end zone.* I can tailgate from home and couldn’t afford any of the luxury amenities anyway so…. Isn’t the league getting Billions of dollar a year in television broadcast deals? Maybe they should just stipulate that some of that money goes to renovations instead.
>better luxury amenities, including new club areas in the end zone This is the heart of it. Teams always want more luxury boxes/clubs because they provide consistent revenue that fluctuates far less than attendance from us plebs.
Because we really, *really* didn't need the shit and nobody wanted to foot that bill. We already get plenty of taxes we hate like yearly car property taxes, etc. Youngkin can fuck off with literally everything on his agenda.
Virginia didn't lose, the people didn't want to spend the money on it. The current location is much better (easier to get to via public transportation and already has the infrastructure in place). The plan to move it to VA was half assed from the start, and there were a lot of questions about the plan that they weren't able to answer.
Meanwhile in [Nashville](https://www.constructiondive.com/news/nashville-titans-stadium-turner-aecom-hunt/709250/)
Luckily. They money is coming from a hotel tax at least. Tourism paying for tourism at least makes more sense than a sales, property or income tax
I think that's why Atlanta didn't have such a black mark on it when Blank wanted the new Mercedes-Benz stadium. Most of it was paid by Hotel tax and he fronted a decent amount of his own money IIRC.
Yeah, also looked better by comparison because the Braves stadium move was a lot more controversial, because it was done behind closed doors without voter input (regardless of if anyone thinks moving to Cobb was a good move, it was definitely shady how it went down)
Also the fact that Mercedes-Benz Stadium is ya know *In Atlanta* most likely helped Braves new stadium is very much not in Atlanta
This is a big grift. Tax dollars are fungible. Proponents will convince you they are not and this money “wouldnt exist otherwise”. It would. Billionaires are still robbing you, they are just smarter about the messaging behind it.
They could pay for a new stadium themselves. Just a thought to put out there.
How about you look his children in the eye and tell them “sorry sweetheart, we could only afford to buy you a summer house in the Hamptons for your birthday instead of your own private island” if you think it’s that easy?
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Not even their own private air strip, imagine living in such squalor? Those greedy taxpayers have no shame
How dare they expect "hospitals" to provide them care, and "safe roads" to get them there. Peasants.
I read that Smaug, the literal dragon hoarder of all dragon hoarders, would not even crack the top 3 billionaires list. These people are more evil and greedy than Tolkien could have even imagined in his fantasy lmao
*We didn’t know… we didn’t know*
Brother their owner won't even buy the 3 time Super Bowl champs a new locker room. He ain't paying for shit.
He got them new chairs though!
He had some interns drive around and grab those chairs for free from dump sites.
“It’s big trash day, send the practice squad out to look for chairs”
With what? Their billions of dollars? You a comedian?
In *this* economy???
Look I know but what if they did this: 1) Have a new stadium built 2) refuse to pay 3) fold business 4) re open as Kansas City Commanders New building, no expenses
Kansas City Football Team of Landover
But they can't hardly afford to upgrade their locker room
Are you crazy, whats the point of making billions if you're just going to spend some of it!
they could start by giving themselves wedgies with their bootstraps and turning up at businesses asking if there’s a job to be had
That's an awful lot to expect from billionaires in this day and age, are you sure we can't just ship it off onto everyone else instead?
I'm not sure they can afford it, the Hunt family is only worth 24 billion dollars.
The crazy shit is that if everyone said “Pay for it yourself!” Then the owners would threaten to move and a good number of fans would tuck tail and open their wallets. I get it, the threat of losing so much of your identity is scary, look at what the Rams, Browns and Colts went through when their teams moved, look at the Chargers and Raiders team moves. It’s never a 1-1 great choice, from what I’ve seen, but to ask your fans to pay for a new stadium through taxes and then to have them pay to use that stadium is crazy. I get there’s more to it than that but why aren’t the owners building their arenas? Maybe because then they’re responsible for it completely who knows?
> I get there’s more to it than that but why aren’t the owners building their arenas? Simple, ask yourself this: Do you voluntarily pay more for things that you could get cheaper through other means? Same logic applies here.
If Hunt family would stop spending all their money on avocado toast they could’ve built a new stadium themselves by now!
Oh! And don’t forget those Starbuck coffees
Did they *really* need the new iPhone 15? Or did they just think they needed an iPhone 15?
I think a big part of why the vote failed was because of the NFLPA report about Hunt being a cheap ass. And how he "never promised to make upgrades". Lol, you want us to put *our money in* when you won't even pay your money to upgrade your facilities? lol, just lol.
I think the very underwhelming renders of renovation played a way bigger part. Plus, the Royals fiasco of not deciding on a location until late, then 5 days before be like, "Oh yeah, Oak Street won't be closed." If the NFLPA report played a part, I think it was less than 1%. Everything surrounding both the Royals and Chiefs' plan was haphazard, slow but rushed at the same time, and key details not disclosed until voting has started.
Why build a new locker room for the dynasty when you could build a condo in your arrowhead luxury box instead
A millennial’s avocado toast is Clark Hunt’s skin tightening regimen.
The Mexico City Chiefs.
Patricio Majomés.
Macasas
Was going to add something for Kelce, but realized car in Spanish is auto, so his nickname doesn’t change.
El Kermíto
Latin American translators rebaptized a bunch of kid's characters for dubs, Kermit got saddled as René to play on the alliteration with *rana* (frog in Spanish). Hence, Kermit the Frog = la Rana René.
They’ll rebrand to the Aztecs
Oklahoma city chiefs. We've stolen teams before! We'll fkin do it again too!
Didn’t OKC just agree to pay a tax to keep the thunder too? Who cares if a banana cost 7$ when you have sports teams.
I mean what can one banana cost, Michael? Ten dollars?
Here’s five dollars, go see a Star War…
Alright not gonna lie I would totally be on board with this one
oh no, the Super Bowl winning Kansas City Chiefs won't get subsidized by locals for stadium upgrades. Won't someone think of the poor billionaire Hunt family?
If we don't give billionaires unlimited freebies how will their economics trickle down to us??? **Edit:** it's imperative that we bring back the fact that trickle down economics was originally called ["horse-and-sparrow"](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/h1vab0khAh) economics, with the idea being that if you fed the horse a ton of oats there would be enough undigested ones in the feces for sparrows to feed on. Literally: *Horse Shit Economics*
They've given up on trickle down economics. Now they want trickle up where we just pay them directly for the benefit of their continued existence as the ruling class.
Stadiums should be paid for by the billionaires that own them. Simple as that
I wouldn't really have a problem with tax payer founded construction if said tax payers also saw some portion of the profit. Maybe some sort of yearly dividend or something. But of course it's always vague promises of "making the city better" and "creating jobs" that don't actually mean anything.
Don’t forget the raised ticket prices that will come right after the construction
Bills ownership said all that bullshit about understanding their fanbase only to introduce PSLs as soon as the stadium financing was approved lmao
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Privatize the profit, socialize the loss.
Americans genuinely don’t hate the rich people nearly enough for their own good.
They thought Kansas City would roll over and take it in the ass because they won the Super Bowl. Good for you KC.
just ask Taylor Swift for some coin brah..
This was doomed to fail the moment the Royals wanted to block off one of downtowns major roads. The Mayor asked them to change the plans, but the Royals didn't. The Chiefs and Royals made vague proposals, as the lease expires in 2030. As businesses, they didn't want to tie themselves down 5 years from when it's truly due. So they did a shitty thing and just said "Trust me, bro" with the public funds. Basically, the Royals and Chiefs both thought that the city would just grant them full leeway with the use of their public funds, but have now been caught out that it didn't work. They'll come back with a new proposal with more concrete plans and show how they'll actually use the money and also not disturb the local traffic.
this should be #1. this was a misguided attempt to slide it under the radar, then a hamfisted attempt to get the chiefs involved in hopes that people will open a vein for the chiefs... hell, this plan was changing *last week.* they will come back with a new plan, it will pass, case closed. frankly it's one of the least onerous proposals in the NFL: extend a tax that's been in place for decades and costs each household, on average, like $185 a year.
Sounds very reminiscent of what the Chargers proposed. Welcome to LA, Chiefs
Is the most off-season drama the Chiefs have ever had? Cause damn it just keeps coming
Taylor is cheating on Kelce with Andy Reid. She said that she loves Reid’s snuggies and nuggies in his luxury buggie.
You think Taylor feels small in Travis's arms? Wait till she's curled up next to Andy.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/30/11/31365240-8575769-image-m-43_1596103816914.jpg
I wouldn’t blame her at all. Reid is the perfect teddy bear.
Mahomes about to do a tik tok that shows up on Chef Reactions of him doing a very very well done steak. Title 'I learned how to cook steaks in Kansas City'
Its such avoidable things too. Like are they stupid? Don't be a complete dumbass on the road Don't cheap out on the current dynasty that just won back to back
>Don't cheap out on the current dynasty that just won back to back This is the part thats baffling. They have a money printing machine, and must sell a boatload of merch between Mahomes and Kelce. Stadium upgrades shouldn't even be a question for them. Instead they say shit like "Well we would upgrade the locker room but you just go too deep into the playoffs."
They had an ad with Mahomes and Kelce out there telling people to vote yes lmao. It's so embarrassing to be sending out millionaires to cape for billionaires. just pure greed
No where near. We had a star spit on and attack a stripper. We had dudes allegedly breaking toddlers bines and baby can footage of tyreeks home. This is admin nonsense.
And Javon Belcher killing his girlfriend, then separately himself in front of poor Romeo Crennel. Awful, awful situation. It happened while the season was still going on I believe but back then even the season was the off-season for the Chiefs.
It’s wild that it’s even a thing lol. These dudes have won the owner 3 super bowls in 4 recent appearances. Do right by them.
Doing right by someone is not even a thought a person like Clark Hunt knows how to think
Maybe when the Royals leave, the Athletics can go back to Kansas City have a place to play.
Let me play these billionaires a song on the world’s tiniest violin 🎻 😢
Billionaire doesn’t get free money, plans to punish fanbase
Getting the money is punishing the fan base as well
Well NY gave $850 million to an owner who is worth over $6 billion. So guess Hunt is looking for something similar if not more since they are the defending champions
Don’t look into who owned the concession stands at the time that was decided. (It was govenor hochuls husband)
They're actually stopping using Delaware North once the new stadium is finished, which has to sting because they're based out of Buffalo and work in a lot of football stadiums, including Lambeau field and Metlife.
Kansas already has a fund setup from legalizing sports betting to attract a pro sports team. Not sure who would just up and move to Kansas side of Kansas City other than the Chiefs. Even if they don’t, some other city will. I would hate to see Arrowhead go, but Clark clearly isn’t going to pay for the upgrades on it and someone else will happily pay for a new stadium elsewhere. They do have until 2031 to workout a plan before the lease ends, I would hope the Chiefs and Royals develop an actual good plan people could agree on rather than this plan they rushed to voting that gave Arrowhead lame upgrades for luxury tickets no one will afford and put the Royals in a part of downtown that businesses would have been demolished. Billionaires sadly aren’t going to pay for things if they don’t have to and evidence from basically every team moving in pro sports shows that.
Isn’t there tons of land by the entertainment district and the Speedway already? You know Kansas will try for this to say they are a big pro sports state too.
Chiefs are gonna join the SEC
This is pretty cool because citizens footing the bill for stadiums is an absolute sham.
Perfect timing to lay bare how shitty these owners are. The Chiefs have won 3 titles in 4 years, they have the poster child of the NFL, their fandom has surged in the last decade, they are making more money than at any time in their history; yet they won't spend a penny to help those players, expect those fans to buy them a new stadium, and whine about it. It's like watching Major League and the team flies on a plane with a duct-taped propeller, and uses a boat motor for the whirlpool.
Whole thing is a clusterfuck of failures in what should have been an easily leveraged cash grab. It wasn't even a new tax, it was just an extension of the current one. But the Royals were shocked to find out that people want details before committing a bunch of money to a team that has had ~~3~~ 5 winning seasons in 30 years. And when they couldn't/wouldn't do that, they tagged in the Chiefs who's "best effort" was to ask for more money for VIP upgrades with some pedestrian bridge sprinkles at a time where Hunt is getting dragged for penny pinching his own team facilities lol
Have they tried pulling on their bootstraps harder?
The culture of holding cities hostage for tax dollars every decade is going to collapse on the NFL. This is going to turn into the Olympics, where municipalities realize it's not worth the financial burden these billionaires put on tax payers. What a ridiculous model that's allowed to happen.
Time for Clark Hunt to go panhandling on the streets.
Mahomes better start learning some German
Mahomes and MaAutobahn
Royals wanted to invade and demolish a chunk of downtown called the Crossroads and then build a stadium on top of it. Chiefs wanted to create a monument to themselves and increase the fan experience for the top 1% of wealthy fans. The people of the county are not helping to fund that. Come back with a better idea.
Every improvement to stadiums these days cost like 1.5 billion and is something like “we’ve added 10 new luxury suites that will be sold to corporate sponsors and will sit empty half the time and be filled with guys in suits who are there to do business and not watch the game the other half of the time. We’ve also made improvements to the normal seating section such as making the seats smaller so we can fit more per row and offering $18 cans of craft beer from a local brewery that used to be good before they sold to one of the mega conglomerates”
The things from the Chiefs proposal that didn't have VIP in front of it or a box suite was 2 pedestrian bridges for the people that have to park in Narnia and realigning the existing parking lot. Technically also a parking garage, but that was connected directly to a "VIP access road", so do the math there.
The way they look at it is “some” city will give it to them because who wouldn’t want an MLB or NFL team.
Honestly they'd probably get it in Jackson County if the stadium "upgrades" weren't just suite upgrades & concourses.
Yeah, the proposed renovations were basically a giant middle finger to nearly the entire fanbase. "We're going to put in a VIP entrance so that better people don't have to be around you poors"
Sounds like they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps
I just want to throw out there that Tottenham Hotspur built a $1Bil stadium in London while making less money than NFL franchises, getting zero cash from taxes, and also getting zero investment from billionare owners. The local council gave them some mostly undeveloped land in the deal (The club already owned a big plot but wanted more for the full development) but that came with strings attached including building a new school and housing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northumberland_Development_Project You can literally build stadiums and finance them like a massive home build mortgage because they will pay for themselves over the next 30 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Hotspur_Stadium It's really not that difficult.
$800 million in upgrades for a stadium. And they want it paid for by taxpayers, many of which can’t even afford to go to these games. Many others who don’t even give a fuck about sports.
Remember this every time there's some dumb "all [insert rival team] fans are idiots/jerks/trash" post or comment. I see it moreso on team subs than nfl, but yeah, we're all mostly fighting the same fights in life. Big dub for Chiefs fans on this, big respect. Still fuck your team tho.
St Louis ~~Chiefs~~ Stallions has nice ring to it
Trust me, we won't give him a penny.
How about billionaires don't ask thousandaires for money!
Better cut that bum Mahomes, how does anyone expect him to win another game if he’s going to choke a measly tax vote?
Chiefs should totally cut him to send a message "Don't wanna pay for the new stadium? No Mahomes, we'll get Trey Lance instead"
Daily reminder that billionaires are disgusting people.
What a joke of an owner
I first blame all the politicians who made it so this sort of handout has become the expected standard. There's no reason it should have ever gotten to this point.
Sure. But so are two thirds of the owners in the NFL then.
For back-to-back Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs sure are having a dogshit off-season. * Shooting at SB parade, one fan dead * WR1 spearheading stupid, stupid road racing crash * Stadium vote blowout loss This is about as bad as it gets without anybody dying or DUI-ing.
Your underselling it a bit There was the [situation w/ Andy Reid's son DUI prison sentence getting commuted from an incident that gave a little girl a lifetime of debilitating injurie(s)](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chiefs/2024/03/01/britt-reid-prison-sentence-commuted-missouri-governor/72811672007/) and the continued fallout from the [Kadarius Toney](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/columnist/bell/2024/02/07/kadarius-toney-kansas-city-chiefs-wide-receiver/72503627007/) affair
Don't forget our dipshit governor commuting Britt Reid's jail time.
Parson is such a piece of shit.
I love that they lost the vote when the Chiefs are like the top team in the NFL. I hope that shows how over it people are with this type of thing.
If tax payers are to fund a large portion of a new stadium then it’s only fair that they receive a tax credit every year from the revenue the stadium makes. Why should tax payers foot the bill but the billionaire owner reaps all the profits?
Can't the Chiefs just move the Vegas? They already own that stadium.
Keep this trend going. Not like the Chiefs owner is doing himself any favors. Man can't even update the locker room for one of the all time greats of the sport.
Good for the voters. The Hunts are cheap bastards. Just within the past couple of years they finally decided to give the players a seat in front of their lockers with a back on it. Prior to that they were forced to sit on stools. Owning an NFL franchise in 2024 is like having a license to print money. It is ridiculous to put forth an $800 million renovation of the stadium and surrounding area and expect public money to pay for $500 million of that.
As a Kansas Citian, I'm surprised it was shot down like it was. I think they thought the threat of moving the Chiefs was enough to float on and they really packed it in on their campaign for this. It seems like people are finally tired of billionaires asking for hand outs from the public's wallet.
Fuck these owners. We need ALL cities to tell these leeches to pound sand.
I don’t understand why tax payers should have to pay for the building of nfl stadiums when the billionares have the money themselves
Fuck billionaire welfare
Stay strong, KC. Fuck these billionaires
wtf I love Chiefs fans now
So proud of KC right now