It’s been a tough few weeks for Kansas City Chiefs fans in The Show Me State. The team lost its franchise player, Patrick Mahomes, for the season with a torn ACL in Week 15, before then losing any chance of qualifying for the 2025 NFL playoffs. The Chiefs then lost again in Week 16, giving them their fourth straight defeat, the longest losing streak for the franchise in a decade.
On Monday, the news that many in Missouri expected, but didn’t want to hear, finally broke. It was announced that the Chiefs, who have played in Kansas City, Missouri, for the last 62 seasons, will be departing the state and moving to Kansas City, Kansas, starting in the 2031 NFL season.
The team will play in a newly constructed $3 billion domed stadium across the state line. That comes after playing in Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri since 1972 and playing home games in the Show Me State since relocating and rebranding from the Dallas Texans to the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963.
The Chiefs will be moving their entire team operations to The Sunflower State, including a practice facility, the team headquarters, and a mixed-use development district, in addition to the new stadium.
The new venue will be built near a district known as The Legends in Kansas. Close by is the Kansas Speedway, which is regularly used by the NASCAR Cup Series. It’s also close to Children’s Mercy Park, which is home to Sporting Kansas City, a Major League Soccer club that Mahomes partly owns.
“This is a great day for Kansas City Chiefs fans,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “This public-private partnership, the result of a thoughtful and deliberate process, will build upon the Hunts’ generational legacy by boldly investing in one of America’s greatest fan bases. The Chiefs’ new enclosed stadium will be a stage for unforgettable moments, whether it’s playoff games, concerts or championship events. We congratulate the Chiefs and the Kansas City community on this important achievement.”
While moving to another state sounds like a drastic relocation to those outside of both Missouri and Kansas, the actual distance of the move is minimal. The area in Kansas where the new stadium will be constructed is roughly 22 miles west of Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri.
The Kansas City metro area includes both Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. Amongst the major pro sports teams that use Kansas City in their name, the Royals of Major League Baseball, and the Current of the National Women’s Soccer League, both play in Missouri. Meanwhile, Sporting Kansas City, as mentioned, plays in Kansas, where it will soon be joined by the most popular sports team in the area in the Chiefs.
Undoubtedly, a major draw to Chiefs ownership in relocating to a new domed venue is the ability to potentially host a future Super Bowl. With the often-frigid temperatures that Kansas City has in February, the open-air Arrowhead Stadium was never going to be included in the rotation of Super Bowl host sites. However, a climate-controlled dome does open up that possibility, as one only has to look at the history of similar venues when it comes to The Big Game.
There are currently 10 NFL stadiums that are either domed, retractable, or translucent. All 10 have hosted a Super Bowl at some point, with many hosting multiple Super Bowls. These types of venues are becoming the new norm. The new Chiefs stadium is one of seven NFL venues either currently under construction or planned, and six of them will either be domed, retractable, or translucent.
NFL fans should get used to seeing new home venues popping up left and right over the next half-dozen years. The Buffalo Bills (2026), Tennessee Titans (2027), Cleveland Browns (2029), and Washington Commanders (2030) all have new stadiums currently under development or construction that will open in the years listed.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs’ 2031 stadium isn’t the only one planned to open that year. The Chicago Bears—who are also considering crossing a state line, from Illinois to Indiana—as well as the Denver Broncos, have proposed stadiums tentatively scheduled to open for the 2031 NFL season.
The Chiefs will become the third NFL franchise to depart the state of Missouri, even though they aren’t relocating as far as the previous two. The Arizona Cardinals were known as the St. Louis Cardinals from 1960 to 1987 before then departing for the Grand Canyon State. More recently, the Los Angeles Rams were known as the St. Louis Rams from 1995 to 2015 before heading west to California.
