The Chiefs are moving to Kansas, but it won't change fandom across KC | Opinion
If you’re a Kansas City Chiefs fan, nothing important is changing.
That is the biggest thing to remember about Monday’s big-deal announcement that the Chiefs are moving to the Kansas side of the Kansas-Missouri line in 2031 — an early Christmas present to Sunflower State sports fans and (much, much more important for our purposes) the politicians, developers and other power players who worked so hard to make it happen.
A beloved local team is moving to a slightly different part of the metro, that’s all.
For Kansas, yes, that move may act as a balm to the state’s longstanding inferiority complex.
“Kansas is not a flyover state,” Gov. Laura Kelly said Monday afternoon. “We are a touchdown state!”
It’s typical, though, that Kansas would finally get an NFL team the day after said team sealed its first losing season after a decade of Super Bowl success. Welcome to the Land of Ahs, Gardner Minshew’s backup!
Missourians, who not so long ago could call themselves host to not one but two big-time football franchises, will understandably be irritated that the number has now gone down to zero.
But the point here is that this is not the Baltimore Colts leaving for Indiana in the middle of the night. It’s not the Seattle Supersonics moving to — of all places! — Oklahoma City. It’s really not the Raiders moving from Oakland to Los Angeles to Oakland and then to Las Vegas. It’s not the A’s going from Philly to KC to Oakland to maybe Las Vegas, eventually.
It’s not even the Kansas City Kings moving to Sacramento. (And yes, I’m old enough for that one to still burn a little bit.)
All it really is — at least for fans — is a team that has been in one location for a very long time moving to a different location just a few miles down the road.
If you’re a Kansas City Chiefs fan right now, you can still be a Kansas City Chiefs fan after the team has moved. Nothing important has changed.
Same fandom, new digs
What really changes here is that Clark Hunt and his family will make a few bucks from a brand-new stadium to add to their already-huge pile of cash. What changes here is that the people in charge of moving money around to help build that new Kansas stadium are going to get richer, too. What changes is that Kansas economic development officials get to put a new notch in their belt.
And maybe it means that Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas no longer spends Sunday mornings tweeting pictures of Brand-New Arrowhead Stadium, or whatever corporate name gets affixed to the giant new coliseum. (As of early Monday afternoon, though, his X account still listed him as a “Chiefs fan.”)
If you’re a fan, none of that should matter to you at all. Not even a little bit.
When this saga started last year, I pointed out that Chiefs fandom permeates all of Kansas City — including the parts of the cross-border community that aren’t named “Kansas City” — and well beyond. Red Friday is celebrated in Lawrence and Wichita. Chiefs flags fly in neighborhoods as far north as Omaha, and that doesn’t seem weird at all.
That’s not going to change. Why would it?
It’s possible some old traditions will die out in the new digs. It would be a blessing to finally lose the “Tomahawk Chop” at last. Some new traditions will spring up. Fans will still tailgate, they’ll still show up in absurdly cold temperatures and get frostbite, and they’ll probably do all of that alongside the same Kansas City neighbors they’ve had for years. Hunt said as much on Monday.
It’ll be loud and expensive and kind of silly, like it always has been.
“We’ve always been Chiefs fans,” Kelly said, “and now we’re Chiefs family.”
Truth is, though, Missourians will still be part of that family.
So if you’re upset today, don’t get too upset. If you’re ecstatic today, maybe rein it in a little bit. Nothing important is changing. The Chiefs will have a new home is all.
This story was originally published December 22, 2025 at 3:45 PM.