A look back at the Chiefs’ 5 decades at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City
In just a few years, GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium will be history.
Kansas lawmakers approved a proposal between the Chiefs and the state of Kansas that would bring the four-time Super Bowl champions to the Sunflower State, drawing them away from their home state since 1963.
It’s a major development in the stadium saga that ratcheted up after Jackson County voters decided against retaining a 3/8-cent sales tax that would have supported renovations at Arrowhead Stadium and helped pay for a new ballpark for the Royals in the Crossroads District in April 2024.
Now the Chiefs are expected to cross the border to Kansas, bringing their time at Arrowhead to an end. The stadium been home to plenty of memorable moments, from iconic concerts to record-breaking noise levels.
Let’s take a look back at what’s happened inside Arrowhead Stadium over the last 53 years.
Stadium opening
The first regular season game at Arrowhead Stadium took place during the 1972 season, which saw the Chiefs lose to the Miami Dolphins 20-10 on Sept. 17 in a rematch from the final game football game at Municipal Stadium in 1971.
In the same season, Arrowhead recorded an attendance record that still stands, when 82,094 people packed the stadium Nov. 5 to watch the Chiefs defeat AFC West rival Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders 27-14, winning their first regular season game at their new home.
The Chiefs have won 257 regular-season and 14 playoff games at Arrowhead since opening.
The biggest pop star of all time
Hundreds of touring artists have played at Arrowhead, with the first concert belonging to British pop legend Elton John in 1973. Very few, if any, have matched the star power pop icon Michael Jackson brought to Kansas City in 1984.
Jackson and his brothers announced that their Victory tour would start with three concerts July 6-8, 1984, at Arrowhead Stadium. Around 38,000 people packed the stadium each night to watch the King of Pop put on a show.
Attendance records for concerts since then have eclipsed that number, like Garth Brooks’ sold-out show in 2021 selling 74,500 tickets, but all eyes were on Kansas City for Jackson’s first tour since 1981, before “Thriller” released.
Border Wars
The University of Kansas and the University of Missouri recently revived their Border Showdown on the football field, but the biggest matchup in their rivalry took place at Arrowhead in 2007.
Dubbed “Armageddon at Arrowhead,” when the two teams met Nov. 24, 2007, the Jayhawks were No. 2 in the AP poll, and the Tigers were No. 3. The winner would almost certainly become No. 1 in the college football rankings, which back then determined the teams that would compete in the national championship game.
That night, 80,537 fans watched Missouri take down Kansas 36-28, and while they’d continue playing each other at Arrowhead until 2011, when Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC, the rivalry wouldn’t reach these same heights.
The stadium has hosted five Big 12 Championship games, and more recently, Kansas played home games there while renovations to David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium were nearing completion.
International soccer friendlies
Arrowhead has had its fair share of international soccer superstars step foot on the field long before the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
English powerhouse Manchester United made its way to Kansas City as a part of a series of international friendlies before the beginning of the Premier League season in 2010.
They were set to play Sporting Kansas City (then the Kansas City Wizards) at CommunityAmerica Ballpark in Kansas City, Kansas (now called Legends Field), but ticket demand moved the game to Arrowhead to accommodate more fans.
Kansas City came out on top, defeating Manchester United 2-1 in a back-and-forth contest in what was also the first event at the newly renovated stadium. Arrowhead also hosted a friendly between Mexico and Paraguay in 2015, which drew 38,114 fans.
World record-setting cheers
“The Loudest Stadium in the World” isn’t just a nickname; it’s a title Arrowhead and its fans earned on multiple occasions. Chiefs fans remember Broncos quarterback John Elway complaining to referees about the crowd noise in the 1990s, but fans took it to a new level in 2013.
The Arrowhead crowd set the world record for the loudest stadium cheer at 137.5 decibels in 2013 in a game against the Raiders. The Seattle Seahawks outpaced the record the same year, and Chiefs fans responded in 2014, setting a new record of 142.2 decibels in a game against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
The first AFC Championship
The Chiefs had never won the trophy named in honor of its former owner, Lamar Hunt. That all changed during the 2019 NFL season.
Led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs reached their first AFC Championship Game in 2018, but ultimately fell short of winning and heading to the Super Bowl. They didn’t let it slip away in 2019, defeating the Tennessee Titans 35-17 and claiming the Lamar Hunt Trophy for the first time in franchise history.
They’ve since won the AFC Championship four more times and have been in the championship game every year since 2018, although they will miss out on extending the streak in 2025.
Arrowhead votes
For the first time, in 2020, Arrowhead Stadium served as a polling place. The Chiefs teamed up with the Kansas City Election Board and Mahomes’ “15 and the Mahomies” foundation during the general election to turn Arrowhead into a central polling location for Kansas City residents.
The move happened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was suggested that people stay at least 6 feet away from each other in outdoor spaces to prevent any spread of the disease.
The Eras Tour
Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour made its way to Kansas City on July 7-8, 2023, which may have been the most important dates of the 2-year-long odyssey. Over 65,000 fans were in attendance both nights, but none were as vital as at the July 8 show, when Swift’s future husband and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was watching,
Kelce said he attempted to get his phone number to the pop superstar through a friendship bracelet, and now they’re engaged.
Messi in Missouri and Copa America
Like Manchester United previously, MLS and Sporting KC moved an April 2024 game against Inter Miami from Children’s Mercy Park to Arrowhead Stadium to accommodate more fans. This time, it was for the chance to see soccer legend Lionel Messi play.
That day, 72,610 fans watched Messi score a goal and assist another in an eventual 3-2 victory for Miami. So much for home field advantage for Sporting KC.
Just a couple of months later, Messi’s teammate at Miami and Barcelona FC, Luis Suarez, returned to Arrowhead for Copa America. Uruguay faced off against the United States in the group stages in July 2024 at Arrowhead, where they handed the U.S. their first loss in Kansas City in a 1-0 match in front of 55,460.
This story was originally published December 22, 2025 at 2:18 PM.
