The Chiefs' new stadium is basically Arrowhead with a software update

There has been plenty of discourse surrounding the Kansas City Chiefs' home over the past two years if you've been tuned into anything Chiefs-related. The team's current lease at the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, Missouri, is winding down, and many were distraught when the team announced its departure from its longtime home to the Kansas side of the KC metro, in Kansas City, Kansas, near The Legends area in Wyandotte County. While some view this as a 20-minute difference in where the (still) Kansas City Chiefs will play, others view it as Benedict Hunt betraying a state that has made him billions. I, personally, am one of the former rather than the latter.

Whatever side of State Line Road you stand on, there was without question a sense of excitement around the Chiefs building a new stadium, particularly when a $3.1 billion price tag was being floated. Even the Missouriest of Missourians could get along with that—Kansas taxpayers inevitably footing the bill for their favorite NFL team's gargantuan new home? HA! Losers! As a current Kansan, I can't say that proposition is appealing to me, but the thought of a brand-new football mecca is.

This has to be a grandiose, state-of-the-art complex, right? Like nothing we've ever seen before! Well, on Wednesday we got a sneak peek of the Chiefs' new digs.

Full transparency here—I have been "got" by fake tweets more than I'd like to admit. If you dig deep enough (just past the surface) of Twitter, you'll find a sub-species of faux NFL insider accounts. Last fall, as I was participating in my annual fantasy football draft, I saw a tweet from who I thought was Adam Schefter reporting that the Commanders and wide receiver Terry McLaurin had reached an agreement on a contract extension. On the clock, I took McLaurin in the fifth round. Alas, I had been "Schefter'd" by a fake account and overreached on McLaurin that early.

When I first saw these renderings, I was hoping that perhaps I had been Schefter'd again. That, unfortunately, is not the case. It would appear that Clark Hunt, Mark Donovan, and company have employed Apple's finest engineers to upgrade their stadium. "Guys, this is simple—just sell the exact same thing, but give it a bigger screen and a faster processor." This feels much more like a new iPhone keynote than it does the unveiling of a highly anticipated new football stadium.

Introducing the Arrowhead 3 Pro Max.

Are we not looking at photos of essentially the same stadium the Chiefs are leaving, but with a retractable glass roof on it? I am all for preserving the history of Arrowhead Stadium, but an exact replica that costs $3 billion and is just 20 miles west on I-70?

Perhaps this is a value play. The team floated the huge price tag to the public just to swoop in at the last moment and say, "Haha, just kidding!" They aren't building a new stadium at all. They simply intend to uproot the current stadium from its foundation, move it a short distance down I-70 with some very heavy equipment like the world's largest mobile home, and plant it right next to Kansas Speedway. I'm sure there are plenty of transportation companies in the metro that would almost donate their services for the type of marketing bump they'd get from that.

In all reality, I don't know what I expected here. Had the team come up with something that completely strayed from its roots and traditions, I would be among the many who felt somehow betrayed by it. When they come out with something familiar that pays homage to the house that built football's greatest live viewing experience, I mock it and say, "That's it?!" You can keep some people happy all the time, and all of the people happy some of the time, but it's impossible to keep all of the people happy all of the time. The new Chiefs stadium will be incredible not because of how it looks, but because generations to come will be able to experience what many of us have in its predecessor.

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