Chiefs fans at Arrowhead are salty about new tailgating rule: ‘We’re pissed.’
In the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium Thursday afternoon, the opinions were as hot as the tailgaters’ grills. Smoke wafting across the lot might as well have been pouring out of fans’ ears.
What, Chiefs fan Ebonie Strickland was asked, would she do if — as the Chiefs’ new tailgating rules dictate — she was asked to pack up her tailgating gear and leave Arrowhead’s parking lot after kickoff if she did not possess a game ticket? No more hanging around with brats and beer without going to the game.
Strickand raised her eyebrows.
“Honestly?” she responded.
In one swift move, the ticket-holder raised her left hand and flashed the one digit that would get any Chiefs player booted from a game. Then she flashed it again and laughed uproariously.
“I think it’s horrible. It sucks,” Strickland said of the new tailgating policy, which was announced this week and is being rolled out as “best practices” league-wide by the National Football League.
On Thursday afternoon, before the preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, masses of Chiefs tailgating faithful sat around their grills and stood as a sea of red alongside their corn hole and Gulliver-sized jenga games, expressing a mixture of anger and confusion about how it all is supposed to work.
“We pay too much money to come in here to park,” Strickland said of the amount, which can range from $30 to $100, depending on the vehicle and ticket package. Same-day parking is $60.
“I mean people have jobs and friends. You get off work at four, and you just want to come out here and hang out with your family and friends, then you have to leave (if you don’t have a game ticket)? And you paid $60?”
To Strickland it just seemed wrong. From one end of the Arrowhead parking lot to the other, the sentiment was mostly the same.
“Pissed. Write that down. We’re pissed,” said Kim Lauderdale-Stepenek, 43, who has been tailgating at Arrowhead with her family as season ticket-holders for more than 20 years. Her father, Drew Launderdale, purchased a 19-foot van with a kitchen and sofa bench just for home games. They set up a feast beneath canopies and break out margarita machines.
Lauderdale-Stepenek said that she understands that, as a season ticket-holder, the new policy doesn’t completely affect her and her family. When games start, they head to the stadium. But not everyone always flows in on time. Sometimes people want to stay behind or, in bad weather, leave the game to head back to the van to relax and watch the game on television.
‘Sometimes we’re not quite put away. We could have 20 people standing here, not quite done,” she said. “And if it’s bad weather, we might stay and watch TV inside.”
Does coming back in the middle of the game to relax at their vehicle count as tailgating? Will it be permitted or prohibited?
“We come out all the time,” she said. “We set the table up with the outside TV and wait for everybody else to come out. We don’t know if they’re going to let us do that.”
Not far away, Wyatt Ezechiels, 28, of Blue Springs felt that the high price of parking alone ought to confer some privileges. Some fans argued that if the Chiefs are going to request non-ticket holders to leave the parking lot after kickoff, or sometime into the first quarter, the Chiefs also ought to refund part of their money. If they only get to stay one quarter, they ought to pay only one-fourth of the parking price.
“It takes away from the whole experience of hanging out out here,” Ezechiels said. “If I wanted to spend time out here, I think I should be able to, especially with the price of parking.”
Of course, Arrowhead isn’t alone in imposing restrictions on tailgating, even among other NFL pretenders to the tailgating crown. In Denver, at the Broncos’ Mile High Stadium, for example, there is no buying just a parking ticket to watch the game on your flat screen in the parking lot.
The Broncos’ rules are clear: Grills are OK, but no glass bottles, kegs or open flames. Tailgates must be held directly in front of or behind your vehicle. Then, as kickoff approaches, it’s time for everyone to clean up.
“We start clearing the lots about 30 minutes prior to kickoff,” said Seth Medvin, the Broncos’ strategic communications manager. “We’ve been doing it for three-plus years.”
The Texans in Houston have numerous rules. “We do have restrictions,” said Amy Palcic, the team’s vice president of communications. Tailgating isn’t officially shut down prior to kickoff, but the expectation is everyone in the lot will be going to the game. Only fans with game-day tickets or something known as a tailgate guest ticket — purchased for guests by season ticket holders at an extra $12 or $14 — are allowed to enter and tailgate at NRG Park.
“This policy was instituted 10 years ago and we really don’t have any issues,” Palcic said.
Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL out of New York, said that the restrictions coming to Arrowhead are, indeed, part of a league initiative, sent throughout the NFL in May. He said about half of all NFL stadiums where tailgating is common already have similar restrictions.
The recommendation was made after the NFL’s annual review of operations at all of its stadiums regarding what’s working and what’s not in terms of issues such as crowd control, security and fans’ game-day experiences.
“Clubs share ideas with the goal of safe, secure, enjoyable experience for fans going to the game,” McCarthy said. “The focus is on putting your resources where the fans are. ... Once the game begins, as one would expect, fans would be going inside the stadium. So that was the natural time to have security resources dedicated to the game. So the (parking) lots would be cleared of fans not attending what fans are there for. The fans buy the tickets to go to the games and that’s where the security resources should be allocated.”
McCarthy shied away from describing the tailgating recommendations as a new league rule or requirement. But he said the expectation is that, eventually, similar tailgating rules will be implemented at all NFL stadiums.
“We anticipate you will see this across the league,” McCarthy said. “Every stadium is different depending on where it is, some stadiums don’t have the ability to have tailgating. It’s considered a best practice. We believe everyone will meet the standard.”
Although, at this point, not everyone is rushing to meet it — such as in tailgating-crazy Buffalo.
“I did see that change by the Chiefs,” Derek Boyko, the Bills’ vice president of communications, said to The Star in an email. “And we have not done that.”
Nor have the Chiefs’ Thursday night rival, the Green Bay Packers. The rules at Lambeau Field, a sea of tailgating on game days, are few, calling for responsible tailgating: no spreading out everywhere, no wood fires, no turkey fryers. One sure way to cheese off of a Wisconsin cheesehead might certainly be to require a game-day ticket to party all day in the Packers’ parking lot.
“Tickets not needed to tailgate,” Packers spokesman Aaron Popkey emailed The Star.
At Arrowhead, not all among the sea of red were speaking with one voice.
“I think it should have happened a long time ago,” said Abby Laughman, 29, of Liberty, an operating room nurse who was out tailgating with her husband and friends, including Ezechiels.
“I mean the gates open four hours before the game. Going into the game at game time, I think is appropriate. You have plenty of time before,” to party and have fun, she said.
Security, she thinks is a valid issue. Fans mentioned cars being broken into while the game is underway. In 2013, fan Kyle Van Winkle lost his life following a fight in the Arrowhead parking lot.
“Less people get hurt,” she said.
In her mind, if people want to set up massive TV screens and bars and not go to the actual game, they ought to stay home and have a house party. The real atmosphere is inside the stadium, she said.
“I mean I’ve seen people out here having like a whole coach, a rug, the whole nine,” she said. “I think saving that money would be of better use than coming here and sitting here in the parking lot.”
Laughman was in the minority.
A full quarter after kickoff, T. J. Bowers, 35, of Lee’s Summit, and his friends were still tailgating, drinking and playing corn hole. They had game tickets, but didn’t intend on entering the game until later. He argued that, as ticket holders, they ought to have the right to tailgate in the parking lot even after the game started.
No one in security had yet come to talk to them. The policy is supposed to roll out gradually throughout the season.
‘I mean if we’re going to pay $60 to park, we should be able to stay as long as we please as long as we’re being respectful,” he said. “What’s the problem, you know, if we’re being respectful and not being arrogant, damaging anything. Why not? I mean we have tickets, so we’re allowed to be here.”
He suggested that the Chiefs might think about enforcing the tailgating policy only for individuals who don’t have game ticket, but still allow those with tickets to tailgate at their pleasure. Friend David Russell, 61, said he thought that rather than asking tailgaters who don’t have game tickets to leave after kickoff, the Chiefs ought to think about having a special lot dedicated for tailgaters without tickets.
Monroe Perez, 35, of Kansas City, argued that that policy as currently exists is a burden. Complying with the policy, having everything broken down by kickoff, would require him to begin that process, putting away food, tents, grills, chairs, tables, at least an hour beforehand.
Tailgating at Arrowhead is a tradition, Perez said. “That tradition that has been going on for years and years is being strangled.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2018 at 8:32 PM.