Missouri Gov. Parson to meet with KC leaders to discuss Royals, Chiefs

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is scheduled to meet Monday with community leaders from Jackson and Clay counties. They and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas plan to discuss options for keeping the Chiefs and Royals in Missouri.

“I thought it was over!” said Kelsie Gana, a Chiefs fan. “I didn’t know it was still going on!”

In April, Jackson County voters rejected a sales tax expansion that supports the Chiefs and Royals. Then, in June, the Kansas state legislature overwhelmingly approved STAR bond legislation designed to incentivize teams to build stadiums in the Sunflower State.

Fans of the teams are divided when it comes to which state they would prefer to see the teams play in.

“Stay in Missouri,” one fan said Sunday. “Of course you have to stay in Missouri, that’s where it all started!”

Another fan says the teams should move across the border. “This is our hometown, there’s nothing better than Kansas, man, there’s nothing better than Kansas.”

JT Miller isn’t from Kansas City, but he believes Parson, Lucas and others should do everything they can to keep teams in Missouri.

“Well, the most important thing is if you have a professional team, especially a professional team with this stature and success, you want to keep them,” he said.

He fears teams will also consider options outside of Kansas City.

“It would be a real mistake if they got robbed and taken to another city. There’s no other city that wouldn’t want them. I’m from Orlando, we’ll take them tonight!”

Others, like Gana, said moving the teams would create tensions between residents of the two states.

“I feel like if you move it across the state line… it’s just going to be a little battle, I mean not that deep, but a little battle between the two of them,” she said.

While another fan said that as long as they were in town, they didn’t care which side of the line they were on.

“I mean, whether they go one way or the other, it’s the same thing.”