The Kansas City Chiefs’ announcement that they were moving to Kansas on Monday sent shockwaves through Chiefs Kingdom. Understandably, there are a lot of emotions involved. Some fans who live in Kansas City, Missouri, feel betrayed. Many fans with an emotional attachment to Arrowhead Stadium feel crushed that it will no longer be the Chiefs’ home. Some fans hate the idea of the Chiefs moving into a dome. These are all valid emotions, but there is a bigger potential problem brewing for many Chiefs fans. This new Chiefs stadium may price them out of going to games.
While there are plenty of valid criticisms about how the Chiefs went about leaving their current home, Stacy Smith’s is definitely the most nuanced, and I strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t read it to do so. While I think Stacy hit the nail on the head with his piece, ultimately I don’t think what part of the KC metro area the Chiefs play in will matter to most Chiefs fans in the long run. Emotions are riding high right now, but fast forward ten years and the Chiefs will still be universally considered a Kansas City sports team.
The new location has less to do with moving to a different city or state and more to do with the Chiefs being able to open a state-of-the-art stadium in an area that can also be developed to host events like Super Bowls, World Cup games, and other major events. While I love Arrowhead Stadium and would have loved the Chiefs to stay there indefinitely, the stadium itself isn’t that great. The noise level and the tailgating experience are what make Arrowhead special. The stadium and surrounding area don’t really bring much else beyond the acoustics of the bowl and a spacious parking lot with room for lots of grilling.
I understand an owner wanting to upgrade the location and physical facilities. I understand wanting to build something that can bring Kansas City a Super Bowl. My concern is that in their quest to upgrade what wasn’t great about Arrowhead, they will price out the fans who made that mediocre facility so great.
A new stadium may upgrade the experience, but rising costs could price out the fans who made Arrowhead special.
When NFL teams build new stadiums, it is almost universal that they use something called a Personal Seat License, or PSL, to help pay for it. A PSL is a sizable fee charged to fans in order to give them the right to purchase a season ticket. That’s correct—you have to pay for the right to purchase something. In many NFL cities, this has made it almost impossible for average fans to afford going to a game.
According to at least one report, the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium is set to seat 60,108 people. They currently have season-ticket PSLs on 54,268 seats. Another 3,725 seats are set aside for visiting teams, families, sponsors, and similar uses, leaving about 2,000 seats available as single-game tickets with no PSLs. The demand for those few tickets will drive prices through the roof, leaving fans either paying exorbitant fees for the right to buy expensive season tickets or trying to win a bidding war for the handful of tickets left over.
The plan announced by the Chiefs stated that the new stadium would have about 10,000 fewer seats than Arrowhead currently does. A big part of that is because there will be larger club and box seating options that generate more revenue. This drop in seating capacity will only increase demand for Chiefs tickets. When you mix in expensive PSLs for season tickets, it isn’t hard to imagine it becoming far too expensive for average Chiefs fans to attend a game.
Then there is the parking situation. Will the Chiefs or the State of Kansas pay for all the real estate needed to build enough parking to continue Kansas City’s tailgating tradition? Maybe they will, but it isn’t hard to imagine them wanting to use some of that space near the stadium for development—restaurants, bars, and similar attractions. That’s part of the allure of a new location. Perhaps they decide to save space by building several parking garages instead. Fans could pay one rate to park in a garage, while those who want an actual lot where they can tailgate might have to pay a higher parking rate because space is more limited. To be clear, this is speculation, but it doesn’t seem far-fetched.
If these worst-case scenarios do play out—if the new stadium makes tickets too expensive for the average fan and tailgating becomes less common—it will lead to a completely different gameday experience for Chiefs games. The team may move just across town, but the traditions will not follow. The noise level and intensity at Arrowhead were built by average fans, not by people sitting in corporate box seats. The same is true for the incredible smell of the parking lot, with grills fired up as far as the eye can see.
The Chiefs are moving to Kansas, and that’s fine. The Chiefs want to upgrade their physical facilities and the area around the stadium so they can host a Super Bowl, and that is fine too. The problem is that both of these goals may very well result in pricing the average Chiefs fan out of attending games. If that happens, the very things that made Arrowhead one of the best atmospheres in all of sports will be lost. That is what Chiefs fans should be worried about right now—not which side of the state line the stadium sits on.