Clark Hunt clarifies London connection relative to Super Bowl requirement

Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt reinforced his hope Saturday that his team’s trip to play a regular-season game Nov. 1 in London will satisfy a Super Bowl requirement.

Hunt said the NFL recently passed an amended resolution from 2006 that requires teams who hold the Super Bowl to play overseas in the next five years.

The Chiefs agreed to move a home game to London this season, vs. the Lions, and Hunt made it clear that the Chiefs hope to get retroactive credit, of sorts, for fulfilling that requirement if they indeed win a future bid to hold a Super Bowl.

“The way the rule works is if you want to bid for a Super Bowl, you have to be willing to give up a home game if you’re the winner of the Super Bowl bid — that was voted on in the fall,” Hunt said. “Coincidentally at the time, we made the decision to play a game next year in London.

“And I’ve mentioned to the league that when we get around to bidding on the Super Bowl, we certainly will include in the bid that we’ve been to London already.”

Goodell told The Star in April that he did not think the league’s owners would tie a Super Bowl bid to being a host to an international game, but Hunt said he spoke with Goodell after he made the recent comments.

“I had a chance to speak with Roger since then about that, and the way Roger thought (the question) was asked was ‘If you give up a home game to play in London, you’re guaranteed to get a Super Bowl,’” Hunt said. “He was trying to mention that’s not the truth, which of course, it’s not.

“So it may have been a misunderstanding on his part, or the way the question was asked.”

Hunt told The Star at the owners’ meetings in March that he did not expect the league to seriously consider going back outdoors in a cold-weather market for a “few years down the road.”

Hunt said the NFL’s spring meeting, May 18-20 in San Francisco, will provide him a better forum to engage his fellow owners on the topic.

Regardless, the forfeiture of a home game contributes to a 2015 schedule that looks difficult. The Chiefs will play only three of their first 11 games at Arrowhead Stadium before finishing with four of six at home.

“Every year when we look at the schedule, I personally don’t think it’s ever easy,” Hunt said. “The great thing about (coach) Andy (Reid) is it doesn’t faze him. Andy’s like ‘Look, bring the games as they fall, we’ve got to play them all. If we want to win the Super Bowl, we’ve got to be able to beat the good teams at home, away in London, etc.’”

Hunt said the Chiefs always make a point of asking the league for as many home games as they can get early in the season, when the whether is nice, and conversely, fewer games later in the season. But he understands why it didn’t work out this year.

“It just doesn’t work out that way because we’re one of 32 teams that has that type of request and the folks that do the schedule for the NFL are trying to balance literally hundreds of requests,” Hunt said. “It’s a very difficult job and they come up with the best schedule they can and we’ll look forward to playing them as they come.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Clark Hunt clarifies London connection relative to Super Bowl requirement."