Chiefs president explains plan for fans in stands and perceived elevated ticket prices
The aftermath of a Super Bowl title has been overshadowed by one of the most unusual and unpredictable summers in NFL history.
Kansas City is not immune.
Rather than an offseason defined by a championship celebration, the Chiefs have been occupied instead with real-world issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, deciding whether to allow fans at home games, furthering discussions with Native Americans on traditions like headdresses and the chop, as well as Black Lives Matter and voter registration.
Chiefs team president Mark Donovan spoke with the media on a Zoom call Wednesday, addressing all of those topics.
Below are his comments on the plan for fans in the stands and the ticket prices for the games, edited for length and clarity. You can also find the plan for turning Arrowhead Stadium into a voting location here and the ban on Native American imagery here.
• The Chiefs previously announced they will allow fans inside Arrowhead Stadium for the first three home games at a reduced capacity of 22%, which Donovan said equates to roughly 16,000 tickets.
“We are very confident in our plan. We’ve said this numerous time and will say it again, and we will reiterate it — our plan is only as good as compliance and the following of directions, following of protocols for our staffs, for our players, for our coaches, for our fans,” Donovan said. “It’s critical that everybody follows the protocols. But if they do, we feel pretty confident we can do this.
“... We take the responsibility very seriously. We understand we gotta get this right. We’ve gotta be very diligent in our processes, in our protocols, in order to be successful, in order to have another game with fans. We know that other teams and other leagues are going to be looking at us.
• The Chiefs will institute a series of safety protocols for the home games, including a mask mandate and social distancing measures. Last Saturday, they instituted a trial run, with 2,000 fans allowed to watch practice, some of which were spotted with masks off or worn below their nose and mouths. On Saturday, they will have another trial run with 5,000 fans.
On the enforceability of the mask mandate and other protocols, Donovan said, “We’re going to continue to learn and continue to try to understand how we can better enforce that. You’ll see some new things this weekend with signage and with more staffing focused on that issue, specifically walking up and down the aisles, making sure they’re reminding people to put their masks on. We don’t want to be in a situation where we’re evicting someone or arresting someone or anything like that. But we think we have enough systems and enough communication in place where we can enforce that. It’s to protect all of us.
“We can get into some science conversations about distance and volume. One of the biggest things we have to our advantage is we’re an outdoor stadium. But we also have to listen to the experts, and the experts are telling us, yeah, you’re an outdoor stadium, but you’re not just sitting and eating dinner. You’re standing and cheering and yelling and screaming, and those are all things that factor into the risks associated. And those risks are significantly decreased if you wear a mask. So those are the kinds of things we’re going to be focused on.”
• The 22% reduced capacity leaves the Chiefs with 16,000 tickets to sell to games at Arrowhead Stadium. Season ticket members have had the first opportunity to buy single-game tickets, and they were greeted this week with prices significantly higher than their typical season ticket price.
Donovan explained how the Chiefs arrived at their pricing charts with the new capacity.
“What we did in putting together our plan for how do we take a stadium from 76,000 seats down to 16,000 seats and equally and fairly distribute those tickets to our season ticket members. As you can imagine, when you do the math, (the answer) is pretty quickly that you can’t. So what we did is said all season ticket members will have the opportunity to move their tickets to ’21; there will be benefits and incentives to do that; we’ve locked in their flat pricing for next year; they have the opportunity to win free tickets to games; there are a lot of different benefits. Then we sat down and said how do we make this fair and equitable in terms of the tickets we do have.
“On the pricing issue, in May when our schedule was released, we announced our single-time ticket pricing. In May, when we announced those prices, we assumed we were going to have 76,000 people in the stadium, and those prices were based on a lot of very complicated algorithms and data that we use to understand the market and understand what the value of those tickets are in this market. Before we reduced to 16,000 seats, before we went through any of those changes, we set those prices. We haven’t changed those prices. They’re exactly what they were. Those are single-game prices, and they’re based on the value of those tickets in the marketplace. We completely understand and expected the response — because it is a significant jump. Number one, that’s the value of having a season-ticket plan; you have the benefit of those ticket prices being much below market value, but you’re committed to the full season. The single game option gives you the option to pay a little more, in some cases a lot more, because you’re buying one game. You’re not obligated to pay for the full season; you’re buying one game; and you’re paying what the market rate is.
“To defend the market rate, we’re pretty good from a data standpoint and an algorithm standpoint in our team of understanding what the ticket is really worth and being below that number. Acknowledging that there are significant jumps, a person that buys a ticket to our Houston Texans game today at the price we’re selling can put that on the secondary market that minute and make more money. Hundreds of dollars more. In some cases, a $400 ticket is going for $1,000 on the secondary marketplace. So what we’re trying to do is be fair but represent the market.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 4:27 PM.