Has Arrowhead Lost The Magic?
The Kansas City Chiefs may find their fans are going to let them down when the need them the most.
Chiefs COO Mark Donovan announced today in an interview on 810 Sports that the Chiefs are in danger of having this weekend’s crucial game against the Tennessee Titans blacked out.
While December games, particularly the day after Christmas, can be difficult to sell out, teams in the playoff race at this time of the year are usually safe.
After 3 miserable seasons, however, the Arrowhead Faithful stopped showing up and the Chiefs experienced a blackout last December for the first time in a number of years.
This year the Chiefs got back on track, winning 9 of their first 14 games. 6 of those wins came at Arrowhead. They have been atop the AFC West all season long and if they win their last 2 games, both at Arrowhead, they will be back in the playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, that doesn’t appear to be enough to give Arrowhead Stadium it’s old spark.
To be fair to the fans out in Kansas City, there are a number of factors that could be keeping fans from gobbling up all the tickets to Sunday’s game. Let’s take a look after the jump.
1 Not everyone is a believer
After winning only 10 games in 3 years, the Chiefs may not have won back the full confidence of all their fans yet. Trepidation over how good this Chiefs team really is could be keeping folks away.
2 The game is the day after Christmas
A lot of folks likely have family in for the Christmas holiday and that could be keeping them from making the trip out to Arrowhead.
3. It is going to be cold
It is December after all.
4. Money
With the economy being in the toilet and a lot of folks still out of work, going to a very expensive football game may not be on the top of everyone’s priority list this year.
I’ve talked to many folks this season who have gone to Arrowhead for years and most of them seem to agree that the stadium has lost a little bit of it’s magic. Everyone agrees things are certainly better than they have been the last few years but that something is still missing in what was once the most intimidating stadium in the NFL.
I, perhaps foolishly, just assumed that once the Chiefs started winning again that everything at Arrowhead would go back to normal. It looks like it may take a little bit longer than I expected.
The Chiefs need a big, loud crown now more than they have any time this season but it appears as though a number of factors could keep fans away. It appears this news may have reached the players because last night Chiefs DE Wallace Gilberry took to Twitter to encourage fans to get out to the stadium this weekend.
"Gilberry92 Wallace GilberryI dont ask for much but #chiefnation we gone need yall to show up sunday lets get it….."
What do you think Addicts? Has Arrowhead lost the magic? Will the Chiefs Faithful come through this weekend or will the Arrowhead Advantage be watered down this Christmas?
h/t to Arrowhead Pride for the news on the possible blackout.