®MDNM¯®RM75¯®FC¯COL453.PRB - Missouri's NFL Crisis
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I sure wish that ABC's NFL football anchor, the late Howard Cosell, was alive today to reflect about how Missouri will not have an NFL team in the state after the Chiefs'departure from Missouri.
I'm sure Cosell would have some strong words about the financial factors and threats that have left Missouri without an NFL football team for the first time since 1960 despite the significant taxpayer funds spent to develop both Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium and the domed stadium once used by St. Louis Rams.
Cosell regularly attacked the NFL franchises and local governments for using threats to depart a city without higher local tax funds to improve their stadiums.
News stories about Cosell's testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, quoted him saying those efforts were "blackmail" and "extortion."
"Let them run their business like any other without protection granted by Congress. Lord knows they're big business" Cosell was quoted by UPI as testifying before the committee.
There is a direct Missouri connection to Cosell's comments.
In 1995 when the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis various news reports cited the reason as financial frustrations about Los Angeles.
Twenty years later, the Rams abandoned Missouri citing inadequate fan support and because city funding for the St. Louis Stadium was not good enough. The team moved back to Califonia.
Ultimately, St. Louis won a $790 million lawsuit award from the Rams to cover the costs for the Rams failing to meet financial requirements for stadium improvements.
The latest team to depart Missouri is the Kansas City Chiefs. They abandoned Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium after voters defeated a sales tax proposal for stadium improvements.
The Chiefs will move to a new stadium in Kansas.
The Kansas City Star reports the move could cost Kansas more than $6 billion to build the new stadium.
Beyond that, the Star reports that the Kansas financial incentive for the Chief's to move could end a restriction on state tax incentives to stop "boarder war" raids that entice a business in one state to move.
It makes me wonder about the potential costs and legal fights if the Kansas Kansas City Chiefs seek to move from Kansas back to Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri.
And of course, an abandoned football stadium in St. Louis and at Kansas City's Arrowhead might entice teams from across the country to jump at the opportunity if, of course, there are sufficient financial incentives.
If you read various stories about tax funding for NFL teams, you'll read a reference to STARBonds to entice relocation to Kansas.
They are bonds issued to finance a private project, like a football stadium, that are funded by additional sales taxes collected within the district.
I write this column from the perspective of listening to legislative debates about the advantages to provide tax breaks for various private financial interests.
From my hours reading Cosell's arguments and listening to him on Monday Night Football, I gained a far better understanding about the danger of committing government funds to private sports operations that are free to leave for other locations.
As a footnote, the move from Missouri for more financial benefits has lost the state two Super Bowl champions.
[Phill Brooks has been a Missouri statehouse reporter since 1970, making him dean of the statehouse press corps. Although now mostly retired, he has been the statehouse correspondent for KMOX Radio, director of MDN and an emeritus faculty member of the Missouri School of Journalism. He has covered every governor since the late Warren Hearnes.]
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