There鈥檚 a vocal faction of 50度灰视频ans who despise the Chiefs for their involvement in Rams owner Stan Kroenke moving his team from the Gateway City to Los Angeles eight years ago, thus giving Kansas City the state to itself from an NFL perspective.
Chiefs owner Clark Hunt cast the lone dissenting vote among the six ballots submitted in 2016 by members of the NFL鈥檚 stadium committee on a proposal for the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, not the Rams, to relocate to the LA market. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones stepped in and was instrumental in brokering an alternate deal, which was approved 鈥 the Rams and Chargers moving there, and Kroenke then blasting 50度灰视频 on his way out of town.
Some people remain angry at Hunt and the Chiefs.
鈥淐lark Hunt knew he had enough suckers in the 50度灰视频 area who鈥檇 fall all over themselves at the first opportunity,鈥 one person commented on a story posted on our website last season about the Chiefs鈥 lofty TV ratings in 50度灰视频. 鈥淲ell played, Mr. Hunt.鈥
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Added another: 鈥淔or the life of me I have no idea how anyone that lives in this area, especially if you have done so most of your life, can watch or in any other way support the NFL. ... The NFL called you terrible, the entire area terrible and the Chiefs ownership was first and foremost among them.鈥
But it鈥檚 a small group of 50度灰视频 football fans who see it that way. How do we know that? Look at television ratings 鈥 astounding figures.
According to Nielsen, which measures viewership, the Chiefs were involved in the seven most-watched programs shown on 50度灰视频 television in the year stretching from the 2023 to 2024 Super Bowls 鈥 which they both won. That study encompassed game telecasts plus the pregame/postgame shows bookending this year鈥檚 league title game.
50度灰视频 drew the highest rating in the nation outside of KC and Buffalo for a Bills-Chiefs playoff contest last season, and the market was tied for No. 7 in the country for Kansas City鈥檚 scintillating overtime victory over San Francisco in the Super Bowl last February. (50度灰视频 had been tied for fourth in preliminary figures released last winter.)
So of course the Chiefs will be fixtures again this season on 50度灰视频 television, as they kicked off their season on Thursday night by facing Baltimore in a contest televised nationally on NBC (KSDK, Channel 5, locally).
Each of their 17 games other than the two that will be exclusively streamed are expected to be shown on TV outlets available in the market, most of them on over-the-air stations led by seven set for KMOV (Channel 4).
鈥50度灰视频 is a great sports city with terrific football fans who have clearly adopted the Chiefs as their viewing favorite,鈥 KMOV general manager JD Sosnoff said this week.
The national allure
The Chiefs have become a national team, and why not? They have a bevy of key ingredients.
First, they鈥檙e good 鈥 they鈥檝e reached dynasty status. KC has played in the last six AFC championship games, winning four of them and following up their conquests by winning three of those ensuing Super Bowls. The mission now is their third consecutive NFL title, a feat accomplished only three times in the league鈥檚 history and not since the Green Bay Packers did so in the 1965-67 seasons.
(Can we please squelch the narrative now in the national media that they鈥檇 become the first team to win three successive Super Bowls? While it technically is true, it really is just hype. Green Bay won the first two Super Bowls after having won the NFL championship the previous season, just before the NFL and AFL merged. And it鈥檚 not like the Packers鈥 pre-Super Bowl title in that run came before the automobile was invented.)
Adding to the Chiefs鈥 luster is that they have a fun-to-watch offense engineered by a widely popular quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. Then last year the coupe de gras was added when KC tight end Travis Kelce began dating pop music megastar Taylor Swift, an ongoing romance that brought her to many games last year and figures to do so again. That has lured non-football fans to Chiefs telecasts to see their beloved entertainer whenever the cameras show her in a suite 鈥 and it usually is a lot of times.
Breaking down the schedule
With the opener now in the past, the Chiefs have five more contests this season set for national over-the-air networks (two in NBC鈥檚 鈥淪unday Night Football鈥 package, another by NBC on the Saturday before Christmas and two in ESPN鈥檚 鈥淢onday Night Football鈥 bundle.) They also have a pair of contests that will be exclusively streamed, on oddball days for the NFL schedule. Amazon Prime has them a 2 p.m. on a Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and Netflix shows them at noon on a Wednesday, Christmas Day.
The TV schedule for the final week of the season has not been announced, but otherwise there are eight Chiefs games in the Sunday afternoon over-the air schedule shared by CBS and Fox. The team is in the AFC, of which CBS is its primary telecaster, so affiliate KMOV (Channel 4) again is the big beneficiary of the local fervor over the Chiefs.
鈥淲e always want the best possible matchup that week for our viewers鈥 KMOV鈥檚 Sosnoff said.
But barring vastly unforeseen circumstances, KMOV is expected to show all seven KC games on CBS鈥 schedule even if there are 鈥渕ore attractive鈥 options at times.
Fox鈥檚 focus in on the NFC and has just one Chiefs contest this year, and while it has not been confirmed you can bank that local affiliate KTVI (Channel 2) will carry that one 鈥 a Super Bowl rematch with the 49ers on Oct. 20.
鈥淚 think we might show that,鈥 KTVI general manager Kurt Krueger said in jest.
The Chiefs have become entrenched on 50度灰视频 TV. Only one of their games over the past four years that was shown on a broadcast network was not televised in the market, and it was a meaningless season finale in 2019 after KC already had clinched the No. 1 seed for the AFC playoffs. But the Chiefs were in that same situation last season and KMOV showed them anyway, and Channel 4 was rewarded with 13.3% of the market tuning in 鈥 well ahead of any Cardinals telecast last year or this.
Can the Chiefs ratings bandwagon roll on in 50度灰视频?
鈥淭here is every indication that viewership is not only sustainable, but likely to continue the trend of continued growth,鈥 Sosnoff said.
Chiefs remaining TV schedule
Date | Opponent | Time | TV |
---|---|---|---|
Sep. 15 | vs Cincinnati | 3:25 p.m. | KMOV (4) |
Sep. 22 | at Atlanta | 7:20 p.m. | KSDK (5) |
Sep. 29 | at LA Chargers | 3:25 p.m. | KMOV (4) |
Oct. 7 | vs. New Orleans | 7:15 p.m. | ESPN |
Oct. 13 | Idle | ||
Oct. 20 | at San Francisco | 3:25 p.m. | KTVI (2) |
Oct. 27 | at Las Vegas | 3:25 p.m. | KMOV (4) |
Nov. 4 | vs. Tampa Bay | 7:15 p.m. | ESPN |
Nov. 10 | vs. Denver | noon | KMOV (4) |
Nov. 17 | at Buffalo | 3:25 p.m. | KMOV (4) |
Nov. 24 | at Carolina | noon | KMOV (4) |
Nov. 29 | vs Las Vegas | 2 p.m. | Amazon Prime Video (streaming) |
Dec. 8 | vs. LA Chargers | 7:20 p.m. | KSDK (5) |
Dec. 15 | at Cleveland | noon | KMOV (4) |
Dec. 21 | vs. Houston | noon | KSDK (5) |
Dec. 25 | at Pittsburgh | noon | Netflix (streaming) |
Jan. 4-5 | at Denver | TBA | TV to be determined |
Other teams
Unlike KMOV, which is Chiefs-centric and plans to usually go with CBS recommendations for other contests, KTVI has a much wider NFL scheduling canvas to fill.
Krueger said Channel 2 will focus on showing games deemed to be of most interest to the 50度灰视频 market, not necessarily ones Fox is sending to the largest percentage of the country. That will be the case this Sunday, when the station airs the Tennessee-Chicago game at noon instead of the Pittsburgh-Atlanta contest that is going to a bigger chunk of the nation.
The following week, KTVI has Indianapolis-Pittsburgh at noon although New Orleans-Dallas figures to be Fox鈥檚 main game then.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going with the best game available for our audience,鈥 Krueger said, pointing out that the Bears and Packers are both led by young, emerging quarterbacks.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of excitement in (nearby) Chicago, so it just made sense,鈥 he said of the decision to show the Bears鈥 game this weekend. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of excitement up there (in Green Bay), too.鈥
He said the determination on what games to show as the season progresses will be made on a case-by-case basis after things become clearer following the first two or three weeks of the season.
鈥淭hey you start seeing who鈥檚 good and who鈥檚 not,鈥 he said.
Radio run
The Chiefs again will have a major radio presence in 50度灰视频 again this season, as KMOX (1120 AM) returns to the team鈥檚 radio network.
It carried the opener on Thursday and will have all the club鈥檚 remaining contests that don鈥檛 overlap with its marquee broadcast property 鈥 Cardinals baseball. Provided there are no schedule changes, that figures to happen just once. That鈥檚 on Sept. 29, the final day of baseball鈥檚 regular season, a Sunday afternoon when the Cards and Chiefs both play.
The KC game then shifts to KFTK (97.1 FM), an Audacy-owned station as is KMOX.