Missouri suffered another tough break Monday, deepening the state’s history of NFL franchise losses. In January 2016, Rams owner Stan Kroenke received enough votes from fellow owners to move the team from St. Louis to Inglewood, California.

This week, the Kansas City Chiefs announced plans to relocate from Arrowhead Stadium across state lines to a state-of-the-art, fixed-roof facility in Kansas City, Kansas, by 2031. Kansas lawmakers approved a bond package to help cover the cost of the new domed stadium.

The decision came after what Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas described as extensive but ultimately failed funding discussions.

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Lucas reflected on his deeply personal connection to the site where the Chiefs have played home games for more than five decades.

“Years ago, as a kid, my family was homeless for a while and we lived in a motel not too far from the stadium,” Lucas said shortly after the team’s announcement. “I knew we struggled, but I believed nothing was cooler than living within a stone’s throw of what I thought then and today is the greatest stadium in football.

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“Like a lot of parents in Chiefs Kingdom, my single mother scraped some money together to get me to Arrowhead for my first game — 300-level upper deck for a 30-7 preseason loss to the Buffalo Bills in 1993. I’ve been hooked ever since.”

Missouri lawmakers had been desperately trying to keep the Chiefs with their own funding package. They held a special legislative session in June backed by Gov. Mike Kehoe that authorized bonds covering up to 50% of the cost of new or renovated stadiums, plus up to $50 million of tax credits for each stadium and unspecified aid from local governments.

GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium before a game between the Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens on Sept. 5, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)

Lucas also had been working with local lawmakers in recent days on a counter proposal to keep the Chiefs in Missouri.

“We understand our very fair but very responsible financial offer of taxpayer support was surpassed by an even more robust public financing package in Kansas,” he said. “The Chiefs have a business to run and today made a business decision. We wish them well.”

The Chiefs have advanced to four of the past five Super Bowls, winning three. The team’s recent successes have only increased its longtime reverent fan base. The team’s relocation plans generated widespread reaction among supporters. A potential spike in ticket prices was one concern fans raised, while others sounded off about possible traffic issues and the loss of an historic stadium.

Fans enter Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chiefs, in Kansas City, Missouri, Oct. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

“I don’t think it is the greatest idea,” said Dustin Allen, who lives in Blue Springs, Missouri, and was visiting Union Station in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday. “I think that where they have it is a very nice spot. I will say that the traffic over there is always fun. I think it’s nice to have them downtown in some way, shape or form.”

Mike Robinson, a season ticket-holder from Kansas City, Kansas, was visiting a science museum inside the train station with his son.

“I’m pretty sure prices will go up,” he said. “That’s what I’m concerned about. A brand-new stadium. Season ticket holders may not be able to keep up with their tickets with the rising prices.”

Analaysia Miller, a Chiefs fan from Kansas City, Kansas, didn’t have a strong opinion about the move since the team isn’t leaving entirely. The new stadium will be about 35 miles (56 kilometers) west of the old one.

“It is just whatever they want to do,” she said as she visited Union Station with her three children. “As long as they are still in our city, representing for our city. That’s all that matters to me.”

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One of the prevailing questions now is whether the Kansas City Royals will follow the Chiefs across the Kansas-Missouri line.

The Royals insist they will not play at Kauffman Stadium beyond the 2031 season, and their preference has been to build a new downtown ballpark. But a sales tax extension that would have paid for an $800 million renovation of Arrowhead Stadium and a new home for the Royals was soundly defeated last year by voters in Jackson County, Missouri, leaving both to look elsewhere.

For the first time in 11 seasons, the Chiefs will not compete in the NFL playoffs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The NWSL on Tuesday implemented a “High Impact Player” rule (HIP), which would allow teams in 2026 to spend up to $1 million outside of the salary cap on star players, such as the Washington Spirit‘s Trinity Rodman, who meet certain criteria.

The news came minutes before the NWSL Players Association voiced their opposition, issuing a statement saying they would now take action to “to enforce the rights of the Players we represent.”

In Tuesday’s statement, the union said: “The NWSL Players Association opposes the League’s decision to move forward without bargaining over the High Impact Player Rule.

“Under federal labor law, changes to compensation under the salary cap are a mandatory subject of bargaining — not a matter of unilateral discretion. Fair pay is realized through fair, collectively bargained compensation systems, not arbitrary classifications.

“A league that truly believes in the value of its Players would not be afraid to bargain over it.

“The NWSLPA has put forward a clear, lawful alternative: raising the Team Salary Cap to compete in a global labor market.

“Additionally, we have proposed that through collective bargaining, we work together to create a system for projecting revenue sharing numbers in future years so that Teams and Players can negotiate multi-year deals with certainty. The Union remains ready and willing to engage in good-faith bargaining.”

Earlier this week, NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke told ESPN that the creation of any such rule requires collective bargaining and that the union opposed it.

“Our position is actually that this exceeds the scope of the league’s authority,” Burke told Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy on their “Welcome to the Party” podcast. “Our position is that they must bargain with us over this kind of proposal, not that they merely consult with us.”

Burke told ESPN: “The league is trying to control and interfere by trying to dictate which players get paid what with this pot of funds. Our position is that teams — GMs, soccer ops, business folks at the team level — are uniquely positioned to make judgment calls about how to structure their rosters, how to negotiate deals.

The league said on Wednesday that under the new rule, each club may exceed the league’s established salary cap by up to $1M for high impact players beginning in 2026.

The NWSLPA had proposed that the NWSL raise the salary cap by $1M beginning in 2026, which is the same amount of money that the league has now cleared for each team to spend through the HIP rule.

The league said on Wednesday that the threshold will increase year over year at the same base rate as the salary cap. The additional allotment may be applied to a single player or distributed among multiple players, providing clubs with meaningful flexibility to recruit and retain high impact talent while preserving competitive balance. For any contract using this provision, the cap charge of the high-impact player must be a minimum of 12% of the base salary cap.

The league called the new measure a “historic increase in league investment” in a news release, noting that it will increase league-wide player spending by up to $16M and a total potential investment of up to $115M over the term of the current CBA.

“Ensuring our teams can compete for the best players in the world is critical to the continued growth of our league,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in a news release. “The High Impact Player Rule allows teams to invest strategically in top talent, strengthens our ability to retain star players, and demonstrates our commitment to building world-class rosters for fans across the league.”

The league said that teams would be able to sign players under the rule “immediately, provided the contract terms do not require the team to utilize the rule until the effective date.”

The rule was implemented in the wake of the contract impasse involving Rodman, as well as the departures of United States women’s national team stars Alyssa Thompson and Naomi Girma earlier this year. Both Thompson and Girma left for transfers of over $1M to join English side Chelsea.

In Rodman’s case, her contract expires at the end of December, meaning she could sign elsewhere without the Spirit receiving any compensation.

The NWSL recently rejected a proposed contract between the Spirit and Rodman, alleging that the deal violated the “spirit” of the rules and accusing Rodman of preemptive “salary cap circumvention.”

The NWSL Players Association then filed a grievance on behalf of Rodman against the league on Dec. 3. In the grievance, the PA said that the contract was legal and that the league’s veto of the deal violated at least five points of the collective bargaining agreement. It is unclear the extent to which the NWSL Players Association is on board with the NWSL’s latest announcement.

In Wednesday’s news release, the NWSL said that per the terms of the current collective bargaining agreement, the league had “exercised its discretion” to implement the new rule following “consultation” with the NWSLPA.

ESPN’s Jeff Kassouf contributed to this story.