Kansas City Chiefs have the worst fanbase

As one of the KC fanbois here (albeit a good day's drive from KC), I can speak to this.

Many fans in the area are tapped out from the Royals' runs. It's not just the tickets but all of the apparel, too.

On the day of the wild card game in 2014, my son and I drove all over the metro area looking for a good selection of Royals shirts and hats. Since it was the last day of September, it was all Chiefs gear. Barely any Royals stuff in any shop.

That changed within a month.

We spent about $3,000 in 2014. Wild Card and two World Series games. Worth every damn penny.

We didn't go in 2015 because the World Series home games (1 and 2) fell on days I was working. We also held off the ALDS and ALCS in case there was a WS 6/7 to go to. For many fans, by 2015, the earlier rounds were going for less than in 2014 because they were saving their wad of cash to blow for the World Series.

We did go to the parade. Much less expensive. In the last three years, we've bought about $700 worth of shirts, hats, hoodies -- I got a 2015 World Series jersey personalized. Worth every penny.

This takes me to the Chiefs.

A team that has lost home playoff games time after time has scarred its fan base. The Royals went 13-3 at home in the playoffs in 2014/15. The Chiefs haven't won a home playoff game since 1993's wild card.

Lots of the sports market here takes a cautious view of the Chiefs. They're not terribly exciting, they have a coach with time management issues and a QB programmed to check down.

In 2012, when the Chiefs hit the bottom, arrowhead was empty. That actually makes me smile.

The Royals drew flies from 1995 to the last month of 2014. People shouldn't go to a restaurant that is bad. Why blindly support a sports team that is bad?

Also... a wild card:

Sporting KC.

They won the MLS four years ago and have a pretty raucous following among younger adults. I wonder if that takes some of the ticket revenue that would go to the Chiefs.

Families go to Royals games. Millennials go to Sporting KC. The Chiefs are a much better product watched at home in HD vs $25 to park and dealing with the arrowhead drunks.

 

Yeah, this pretty much sums up the demographics. They don't call it Camarohead for nothing. In 2014 there were lots of Royals fans in Anaheim and Baltimore. Part of that was people who grew up in the Heartland and then moved to LA or DC, but a good percentage of them traveled because it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime run at the time.

Personally, between concussions and the breakout player being a total scumbag, I had a hard time mustering excitement for the Chiefs even when they had a good season last year.

 

On days when Sporting KC and the Royals have home games, often overlapping, Children's Mercy Park remains sold out. Kauffman Stadium, less so. SKC games are an event. The average regular season Royals game is not. The difference between 17, mostly Saturday or Sunday, home matches and an 81-game home season is evident.

 

Ahem, sir. I went to Kauffman earlier this month and was RIP-ROARING. We did park in front of Arrowhead, though.

 

Sorry to break the news, @exmediahack ... Arrowhead parking for the 2017 season will be $60 if you don't pre-purchase a parking pass.

 

You've neglected to give us a BBQ report from that trip.

 

I have failed at that task indeed. We actually only had one BBQ meal, and it was Joe's (or whatever it's called now) for lunch one day. I had a Z-man and we all passed around a bunch of kinds of various smoked meats. Plugs of pulled pork like it was coming out of a can of dip. It was glorious. We were all pretty wiped out, food-wise, at that point, so we went to Grunauer that night and mostly just got appetizers and beer.

Everyone knows about Joe's, so I'll instead plug two other things from the trip:

- Fried chicken from Go Chicken Go, which was our tailgate food before the Royals game. Just incredible.
- The beer at Stockyards, my buddy's cousin's brewery. We did that the same day as Joe's, so I stuck with their lighter beers - a saison and a lager that they, no joke, described as their version of Corona. But both were very good, and the atmosphere was good, too. You KC folks who like beer should check it out.

 

$60?? That's insane. Especially to me as I hate paying to park anywhere. Anywhere.

Royals pre-games also have a decent amount of drinking in the lot. But you also have lots of families and tour groups.

NFL pregame lots, though, always feel like a fight is about three double-negative-laced insults away.

 

we all passed around a bunch of kinds of various smoked meats.

16-year old Big Circus must be so disappointed.