If the Chiefs absolutely had to consider a new moniker, what would some options be?
With the news now fully enveloping Dan Snyder and his football team in Washington working towards (finally) changing their mascot/moniker/logo after decades of pushback and protest, the news cycle has begun to shift toward other teams with questionable names or mascots who should also rebrand their franchises.
Like Washington and Snyder, the Cleveland baseball team, too, has begun work on changing their team identity. Others have called for changes to teams across the country like Florida State, the Atlanta baseball team and yes, even the Kansas City Chiefs.
For those unaware, the name for Kansas City’s football team goes back to how the team arrived in Kansas City in the first place. Former Kansas City mayor Harold Roe Bartle paved the way for Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt to move the Dallas Texans to K.C., and Hunt named the team after Bartle’s nickname, “The Chief.”
Bartle’s nickname originated from his involvement with the Boy Scouts of America. In 1925, Bartle created a (fake) “tribe” associated with the scouts called the “Mic-O-Say“, a group that still exists today. So while obviously, the name for the football team was not directly tied to Native American imagery, Bartle’s nickname was the result of appropriation of the culture.
Whether or not current Chiefs owner Clark Hunt should consider changing the name of his franchise is not a debate we’re having here. Rather, the goal here is merely to consider some alternatives should the the organization decide to go in a different direction.