Mark Donovan says Chiefs have stadium options in both Missouri and Kansas

When Kansas City Chiefs president Mark Donovan opened his annual pre-training camp press conference at Missouri Western State University on Friday morning, he was facing a press gaggle that wanted answers about what the team intends to do about its home field — and they wanted those answers right now.

But in multiple responses to similar questions, Donovan said that while the team hasn’t yet decided what it will do, they’re working on figuring that out. In the meantime, there’s one thing that everyone can count on.

“It’s important for everybody to understand,” said Donovan, “that we are playing Kansas City Chiefs football home games — if [they’re] not international games — at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium through 2031. That is our plan; that is what we’re doing.”

After that, however, the picture gets much cloudier. After Kansas lawmakers passed their modified STAR bond proposal that would make it possible for the Chiefs (and possibly the Kansas City Royals) to build new stadiums on the other side of the state line, many fans (and media observers) concluded it was obvious the team would make that move — just because it would be easier to build a new, modern facility.

But Donovan isn’t convinced it’s that obvious.

”I don’t think there’s a simple path on either side,” he insisted. “There’s a lot of work to be done on Kansas to see what the reality of that is. We don’t take that for granted.

“It was amazing what Kansas did. It was good to see. We really appreciate the leadership [from] Ty Masterson, Dan Hawkins, the various people [and] the governor in putting that together. That’s the first step.

“[But] once you get through that, it gets really complicated in how you do that. For us, the good news is that it creates more options.”

Donovan acknowledged that the team is engaged in stadium discussions with Kansas officials. But the team isn’t yet giving up on staying home.

“We continue our discussions with the folks in Missouri,” he said. “Talking to various leaders, there seem to be other options that are coming up now on the Missouri side. So we appreciate that — and it’s consistent with our strategy: if [the April proposal didn’t work], which was our plan, then we’ve got to look at options. And now we’ll have a couple of options to look at.”

Donovan believes that any Missouri solution would eventually come to a public vote. But until that state’s primary elections happen in early August, it will be difficult for state (or county) officials to estimate 2025’s political landscape. That would significantly shape any proposal that would come to a vote in… say… November.

If there is another Missouri vote, Donovan says the proposal will only include the Chiefs — and voters will have a clearer picture of what is on the table.

“We have committed that if we go to a public vote, we’ll do it in a way which is much more ‘final’ before we get to the vote,” he promised. “We’ll have a lot of the facts. We’ll have a lot of the details determined before we go. I think it’s important to acknowledge that we’d have to have agreements on the county side — and have support, frankly, from the county.”

How soon will we know the team’s plans? That’s very hard to calculate.

“We have to have somewhere to play our games for the 2031 season,” explained Donovan. “In order to do that, you’ve got to back up from there. When do you start planning? When do you start building? How do you renovate — or build new? If you’re renovating it, how are you doing it over seasons while you’re still playing there? A lot of those factors play into that.

“That goes back to the option point. We need to have options, we need to have those options to a point of definition to be able to make a decision. So that’s the process we’re in right now.”

So when will that decision point be upon us?

“I think six months from today, we’re going to have a really good idea of where we are,” said Donovan. “We may not be done, but we need to have a really good idea.

”When you’re building a new stadium, there’s a lot more lead time than when you’re renovating. So that’s why that timeline is a little bit longer — and will push us a little bit faster to make a decision. That timeline kind of plays into the Missouri timeline as well. So if we’re on that timeline, we need to make a decision — so Missouri sort of needs to play to that timeline.”

Stay tuned.