Chiefs see positive results, growth in St. Louis market

The Kansas City Chiefs are enjoying a slowly growing fan base in St. Louis as they continue their agreement with KMOV for 2017 broadcasts.

When the St. Louis Rams first announced they were leaving to become the Los Angeles Rams, the nation’s 21st largest media market became an open space for other NFL teams to consider moving in. From the beginning, the Kansas City Chiefs expressed an interest in developing relationships and expanding their fan base into the St. Louis market while simultaneously maintaining a cautious approach—showing respect for the sense of loss felt by football fans watching their local team leave in the name of a billionaire making even more money.

This week, the Chiefs announced that they would renew their deal with KMOV, the local CBS affiliate in St. Louis, to carry Chiefs games and Chiefs-centric content for another year.

“A year ago, it seemed like the logical thing to do since we carry all of the AFC games,” says KMOV general manager Mark Murphy. “With the Rams leaving the market, we had decided that it made sense to approach that. In addition, our sister station is the flagship station, KCTV, in Kansas City, so we made contact with the Chiefs and it was a pretty easy decision to make. Looking back, we’re glad that we did. We’re very happy with the performance of the Chiefs last year. It was a very successful season, and we’re hoping for the best this year.”

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The agreement includes a live broadcast of every preseason game for the Chiefs as well as the broadcasting of regular season games and other Chiefs-related content including Hy-Vee Chiefs Insider, Chiefs Rewind and more. With more broadcasts and further Chiefs success, Murphy says it’s easy to see St. Louis slowly turning into a very significant population of Chiefs fans.

“St. Louis will always be a baseball first market, regardless of what happens,” say Murphy. “That’s the way they were with the Rams, too. But with respect to the football fans here, there already is and probably already has been a decent Chiefs following here. In regards to the Rams fans, I think they’re still upset the Rams left. They enjoy NFL football and I think they’ll slowly begin to adopt a new team as their own. The Chiefs being in Missouri kind of adds to their allegiance there, to where I could see the Chiefs getting more and more saturated into this market.”

The deal with KMOV is not a guarantee that every single Chiefs game will be broadcast in St. Louis during the regular season. If the Chiefs were out of the playoff picture, Murphy explains that the decision would then become difficult to call—whether to appease local Chiefs fans by playing a game without any postseason implications or staying true to their identity as the region’s AFC station.

“Our goal as the AFC station is to air the game that’s most relevant,” says Murphy. “That includes the fan base but it also includes the competitiveness of a winning team. The Chiefs winning as much as they did made it easy. A lot of Kansas City fans responded and were very pleased we were airing those games during the regular season.”

Fortunately the Chiefs continue to boast one of the league’s deepest rosters and have an exciting rookie quarterback on the way in Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs might just make Murphy’s job easier for the next several years.

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