If the Kansas City Chiefs relocated, do you stop rooting for them?

Sep 29, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; A general aerial view of Arrowhead Stadium before the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

I recently was on vacation driving from Kansas City to Seattle, and on the return leg drove through South Dakota. At a gift shop in Wall, S.D., there was a display of NFL jerseys for sale. There were three different teams on the rack, the Green Bay Packers, Denver Broncos, and Minnesota Vikings. I assumed that this was because there is no NFL team in South Dakota, or even a team within 500 miles of Wall. It made me wonder what team I would root for if there were no Kansas City Chiefs. What would it be like if the team moves?

Then I thought about news I had read that morning about the possibility of the St. Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles by the 2016 season. What is to become of all of the Rams fans that have been developed since the team moved there from Los Angeles in 1995. St. Louis previously had a team, the Cardinals, that moved to Arizona after 27 years in the Archway City. For 20 years, fans of the team have been buying jerseys, tickets, studying and worrying about the team just like we have in Kansas City for our Chiefs. Now, it seems, there is nothing that they can do to prevent that team from flying west.

Lots of teams that move claim that their city forced them to because they aren’t being provided with an attractive enough or big enough or modern enough stadium.

The news that .L.A wants a team is not stunning. Periodically, the Oakland Raiders threaten to go there when they want some monetary concession from the city of Oakland. Currently the Rams, Chargers and Raiders are interested in Los Angeles – the Chargers and Raiders want to share a stadium in L.A. Rams owner Stan Kroenke is proposing to build a stadium that is privately financed on land he currently owns.

I think L.A. is about to get a team, and I think it will be the Rams. Missouri is proposing to build the Rams a billion dollar stadium on the Mississippi River but that won’t keep Kroenke from taking the team to California. Only if Missouri were suddenly and magically changed into Los Angeles, almost the biggest city in the U.S., would the team stay in Missouri. It’s all about the money.

Will I ever have to live through my team leaving me? I spent the last few days looking at the ways the Chiefs and their organization are different than what they have in St. Louis. There are enough significant differences that I don’t fear any changes any time soon. Read about them after the flip…

Next: What separates Kansas City from St. Louis?