Forbes calculated how much money Chiefs may lose if NFL games have no fans in stands
It’s 113 days until the Chiefs kickoff the 2020 NFL season by playing host to Houston at Arrowhead Stadium (and celebrate their Super Bowl LIV championship).
A lot can happen between now and then, but the coronavirus pandemic has left the future cloudy. No professional sports leagues in the United States have played a game in more than two months, and there is talk that when the games begin it will be done with no fans in the stands.
That’s how it’s being done with baseball in South Korea and soccer in Germany, and Major League Baseball has determined having no fans in the stands would cost teams $640,000 per game.
Forbes looked at what it would cost NFL teams to play games without spectators.
“The NFL would lose $5.5 billion of stadium revenue (the sum of tickets, concessions, sponsors, parking and team stores) — or 38% of its total revenue — based on figures for the 2018 season,” Mike Ozanian wrote. “But the impact on the individual teams would vary greatly. For example, the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots would lose over half their total revenue while the Buffalo Bills, the Tennessee Titans and the Cincinnati Bengals would lose less than one-third.”
The Chiefs wouldn’t be hurt as much as other teams based on the Forbes calculations. But it would still be a big chunk of change: an estimated $128 million in total stadium revenue (out of $410 million in total revenue). That’s 31.2% of the Chiefs’ revenue.
The $128 million in stadium revenue ranked 21st in the NFL, and one caveat is the Chiefs may stand to make more at Arrowhead Stadium this fall because they are Super Bowl champions.
You can see the potential lost revenue for the other 31 NFL teams and read more by clicking here.
