WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS (CITY, MISSOURI) ANYMORE: ANTITRUST AND INTERSTATE COMPETITION IMPLICATIONS IN THE CHIEFS’ STADIUM RELOCATION FROM MISSOURI TO KANSAS

Author: Gracie Edelen, Senior Editor

Background

Arrowhead Stadium, home of the National Football League’s (“NFL”) Kansas City Chiefs, was constructed in Kansas City, Missouri in 1967.[i] The construction began after voter approval of $43 million in capital improvement bonds, issued alongside funding for its twin facility, Kauffman Stadium, home of Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals.[ii] From its inception, the stadium has been renowned for its electric atmosphere, earning a reputation as one of the most challenging stadiums for visiting teams.[iii] In 2014, Arrowhead proved this legacy by breaking a Guinness World Record for the loudest crowd roar ever recorded at a sports stadium.[iv] Throughout history, Arrowhead has been the home field for renowned athletes like Tony Gonzalez, Jamaal Charles, Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, and the team’s most winningest coach, Andy Reid.[v]

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Despite Arrowhead’s deep-rooted history and legacy, the Chiefs have recently announced their decision to begin constructing a new $3 billion domed stadium, which is to be located only about 20 miles west across state borders in Wyandotte County, Kansas.[vi] Although devoted fans mourn the move from Arrowhead, Chiefs ownership team has indicated that Kansas’s offer, covering 60% of stadium costs through state bonds, centralizing negotiations within a single entity, and having to pay no property taxes, provided a more attractive and streamlined financing structure than what was offered from Missouri to make renovations to the existing stadium.[vii] Although the arrangement may benefit Chiefs ownership, opponents warn that escalating interstate competition risks increasing taxpayer obligations and fueling future cross-border economic conflicts.[viii] The proposed relocation of the Kansas City Chiefs’ stadium from Missouri to Kansas highlights the legal and economic implications of interstate subsidy competition, raising important questions about antitrust law, state action immunity, and the broader fiscal and economic consequences for the Kansas City metropolitan region and its residents.[ix]

Antitrust Implications Behind Stadium Move

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Act, which prohibits "every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade," and any "monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize”.[x][MW2] Although the Act was later interpreted to prohibit only unreasonable restraints of trade, its language remains notably broad in scope.[xi] However, despite this federal framework, a 1943 case, Parker v. Brown, created the State Action Doctrine, in which state and municipal authorities are immune from federal antitrust suits for state policies that have foreseeable anti-competitiveness effects.[xii] Essentially, the federal government must respect the decisions of the state, creating immunity for them.[xiii]

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In terms of the Chiefs stadium move from Missouri to Kansas, a team choosing to relocate is more of a unilateral business decision rather than a restraint on trade, making the Sherman Act generally inapplicable.[xiv] Even if the move was seen as restraint on trade, Kansas is acting in its sovereign capacity under the broad state action doctrine, which would shield them from liability.[xv] However, while Kansas may be insulated from federal antitrust liability, concerns about interstate competition, including renewed border disputes, economic strain on the Kansas City metropolitan region, and issues arising from the State Action Doctrine, remain significant.

Missouri v. Kansas Border Wars

In 2019, Missouri and Kansas Governments entered into a truce to end a longstanding economic boarder war involving state tax payers subsides luring business from one side of the Kansas City metro, located in one state, to the other within the other state.[xvi] The truce was intended to mark a shift toward economic cooperation and coordinated regional development, rather than continued “poaching” through competing tax incentives designed to benefit one state at the expense of the broader Kansas City metropolitan economy.[xvii] Critics of the Chiefs’ proposed stadium move argue that it threatens the regional truce and point to early signs that cross-border economic competition is once again heating up.[xviii]

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The offer presented to the Chiefs from Kansas not only included state spending up to $1.8 million, which is the largest ever professional sports subsidy, but the stadium will also be owned by the state, meaning the Chiefs won’t be subject to any property taxes.[xix] Kansas House Representative Rui Xu says that for the region, this stadium deal is “unquestionably bad”.[xx] He further argues that the use of tax incentives, such as those proposed in this deal, constitutes poor public policy, as such incentives are often used to lure companies across the state line, a practice expressly prohibited by the 2019 truce.[xxi]

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While the Chiefs’ potential move across state lines likely raises no federal antitrust concerns, the absence of a legal violation does not imply that the relocation is economically efficient or beneficial for state-level trade and regional fiscal stability.[xxii] In light of the longstanding interstate competition between Missouri and Kansas, especially in the Kansas City region, the relocation risks crumbling the current truce and reigniting the use of substantial public subsidies and tax incentives that have historically produced limited regional economic gains and uncertain returns for taxpayers.[xxiii]

The NFL’s Market Power and the Expansive Scope of the State Action Doctrine

While the Kansas City Chiefs are seemingly avoidant of antitrust liability, the National Football League’s limitation on franchise expansion raises potential antitrust concerns in situations like this.[xxiv] The NFL is an association of thirty-two professional teams and requires a three-fourths vote of existing teams to admit a new franchise.[xxv] This power is rarely exercised as the last expansion occurred in 2002 with the Houston Texans.[xxvi] As a result, the limited number of teams creates scarcity in this market, increasing competition among states seeking to host a franchise.[xxvii]

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Some argue that this scarcity generates cartel-like bargaining power for teams, allowing them to leverage relocation threats to extract favorable stadium subsidies from competing states.[xxviii] Such a structure could lead to monopoly-like market power by discouraging new entrants and forcing states to offer generous incentives to house a team, when it may not even benefit the state.[xxix] This dynamic also raises questions about whether the State Action Doctrine is too broadly applied when protecting government-approved subsidy arrangements like the proposed Chiefs stadium move.[xxx] Under the doctrine, a state need only clearly articulate a policy displacing competition and actively supervise its implementation.[xxxi] Because this standard is relatively permissive, states may approve subsidy agreements that ultimately harm the public interest and trigger interstate bidding wars, such as the reigning boarder wars between Missouri and Kansas, with no implications.[xxxii]

Conclusion

Arrowhead Stadium has long been a defining symbol of the Kansas City Chiefs’ legacy, steeped in history and tradition.[xxxiii] Although the team’s proposed move from Missouri to Kansas is driven by substantial incentives like a new domed stadium and significant tax benefits, among other things, the broader economic and regional concerns surrounding the relocation remain.[xxxiv] Although antitrust law may initially appear relevant to the proposed relocation, the move does not constitute a violation of the federal Sherman Act.[xxxv] Even if antitrust concerns were implicated, the state action doctrine would likely shield Kansas from liability by granting states immunity from federal antitrust suits when acting in their sovereign capacity.[xxxvi] The primary concern stems from Missouri and Kansas’s history of costly “border wars,” which led to a truce after years of using tax incentives to shift jobs across state lines without creating meaningful regional growth.[xxxvii] Additionally, acts such as this are similar to cartel-like bargaining, which raises questions of the broadness of the State Action Doctrine, which allow moves like this without issues.  Overall, Critics fear the Chiefs’ relocation could unravel that agreement and reignite harmful interstate competition.[xxxviii]
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[i] Vahe Gregorian, Past Results Don’t Assure Future Success, Kan. City Star (Jan. 16, 2026), https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/vahe-gregorian/article314341790.html.

[ii] Id.

[iii] Dominic Minchella, Former Raider Sounds Off on Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, Si.com ( Jul. 13, 2025), https://www.si.com/nfl/chiefs/onsi/former-las-vegas-raiders-derek-carr-sounds-off-on-kansas-city-arrowhead-stadium-#:~:text=The%20Kansas%20City%20Chiefs%20know%20the%20advantage,the%20home%20of%20the%20Chiefs%20since%201972.

[iv] Loudest Crowd Roar at a Sports Stadium, Guinness World Records (accessed Feb. 22, 2026), https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/loudest-crowd-roar-at-a-sports-stadium.

[v] Team Histories, Kansas City Chiefs, NFL Football Operations (accessed Feb. 22, 2026), https://operations.nfl.com/learn-the-game/nfl-basics/team-histories/american-football-conference/west/kansas-city-chiefs/.

[vi] Jesse Newell, Chiefs’ New Stadium Q&A: Here’s What you Need to Know About Team’s Move to Kansas, New York Times, (Dec. 23, 2026), https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6912379/2025/12/23/chiefs-kansas-new-stadium-quesions-answers/.

[vii] Id.

[viii] Amy Liu, The End of Kansas-Missouri’s Boarder War Should Mark a New Chapter for Both States’ Economies, Brookings, (Aug. 14, 2019), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-end-of-kansas-missouris-border-war-should-mark-a-new-chapter-for-both-states-economies/.

[ix] Id.

[x] Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7 (2022).

[xi] Guide to Antitrust Laws Submenu, Federal Trade Commission, (accessed Feb. 22, 2026).

[xii] Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943).

[xiii] State Action Antitrust Immunity, Cornell Law, (Jun. 2024).

[xiv] Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7 (2022).

[xv] Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943).

[xvi] Liu, supra note vii.  

[xvii] Id.

[xviii] Kaylie McLauglin, Chiefs, Lockton Deal Signal Crumbling of ‘Boarder War’ Truce. What Does That Mean for Johnson County?, Johnson County Post, (accessed Feb. 22, 2026), https://johnsoncountypost.com/2026/02/16/border-war-truce-crumbling-279800/.

[xix] Kevin Hardy, With Chiefs Stadium, Kansas Joins States Offering Ever More Taxpayer Money to Billionaires, KCUR, (Jan, 13, 2026), https://www.kcur.org/sports/2026-01-13/chiefs-stadium-kansas-billionaires-taxpayer-subsidies.

[xx] McLauglin, supra note xv.

[xxi] Id.

[xxii] Id.

[xxiii] Id.

[xxiv] Lucas Follett, Unsportsmanlike Conduct: An Analysis of the NFL’s Expansion Policy Under U.S. Antitrust Law, 61 B.C. L. Rev. 2191 (2020).

[xxv] Logan Reardon, NFL teams will vote on these 3 rule changes at upcoming league meeting, NBC Philadelphia, (March 19, 2025), https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/sports/nfl/nfl-rule-changes-vote-teams-eagles-packers-lions/4138501/.

[xxvi] Oldest NFL Teams: Full List of the First NFL Franchises, FOX Sports (Sept. 23, 2025), https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/oldest-nfl-teams-full-list-of-the-first-nfl-franchises.

[xxvii] Follett, supra note xxi

[xxviii] Id.

[xxix] Gerald W. Scully, Sports, Econlib: The Library of Economics and Liberty, (last visited Mar. 16, 2026), https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Sports.html.

[xxx] State Action Antitrust Immunity, Legal Information Institute, Cornell L. Sch., (last visited Mar. 16, 2026), https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/state_action_antitrust_immunity.

[xxxi] Id.

[xxxii] Id.

[xxxiii] Minchella, supra note ii.

[xxxiv] Newell, supra note v.

[xxxv] Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7 (2022).

[xxxvi] Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943).

[xxxvii] McLauglin, supra note xv.

[xxxviii] Id.‍ ‍