The Kansas City Chiefs are already preparing for a revolutionary move, leaving their home at Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri after playing there since 1972. Now, they could make another bold move by not holding on to the “Arrowhead” name for their future stadium, which is set to open before the 2031 season.
“I don’t think we’ll call it Arrowhead,” Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt told FOX4 on September 10. “But we wanted to make sure there were enough elements in the design that remind every fan who has attended a game at Arrowhead about what a great stadium that is. We really want to honor the legacy of Arrowhead, and we know how important Arrowhead is to our fans.”
The stadium where the Chiefs wrote a modern legacy, winning three Super Bowls in the past seven years, will be closed after five more years of service. Although fans were excited that the new stadium would continue the legacy and the name of the oldest stadium in the American Football Conference, that doesn’t seem to be the case now.
The stadium’s name has been in the news for the past decade, with the Chiefs signing a naming-rights deal in 2021 with the Government Employees Health Association to rename it GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, which was reverted to Arrowhead Stadium last month.
But GEHA wasn’t the only one who wanted to reclassify the stadium for their purpose, as FIFA also renamed the iconic stadium “Kansas City Stadium” for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with six matches being played there. However, this didn’t change the fact that the locals would simply refer to it by its original name.
The founder of the Chiefs, the late Lamar Hunt, was the one who came up with the name, as he thought it accurately supported the Chiefs’ Native American motif.
The name also carries a legacy for fans and its eccentric way of handling the games, with the Chiefs lifting five Lamar Hunt trophies here. Whether it is the noise, the crowd involvement, or the tents and smoke from the barbeques, the atmosphere here has been like no other NFL stadium, with many comparing it to the intensity and passion of a college football stadium. But now, the team has taken a new path.
The franchise announced the new stadium’s renderings on July 21, which have been said to honor “the rich legacy of this franchise,” with a capacity of 70,000 fans, being almost 6,000 less than the current stadium.
But why are the Chiefs shifting towards a new stadium in the first place?
Hunt says that they considered the option of building a new one for the next era of the Chiefs and football, stating that it was “the best thing for the organization.”
Hunt also emphasized that they want to build a “facility that can last 50 or 60 years” and “host big events, like a Super Bowl here in Kansas City, or another World Cup when the World Cup comes back.”
Despite the change in location, the new stadium will be designed to capture the same essence as the current Arrowhead.
Clark Hunt says “Arrowhead” is cut but the new stadium will reflect the previous one
Though the name for sure held immense importance in how the fans and others around the world viewed Kansas, the new stadium will make sure to hold on to other traditions – and it all starts with emulating the dome shape of Arrowhead Stadium. However, there are certain tweaks made to make it even more luxurious this time around.
The roof will be fully enclosed with translucent ETFE panels, though fans will still be able to see iconic pre-game aviation spectacles. Also, the audio engineers will help with the construction to further enhance the crowd noise; this idea stems from the fact that the current Arrowhead Stadium holds the Guinness World Record for being the loudest stadium, with the fans’ roar reaching 142.2 decibels on September 29, 2014, in a 41-14 win against the New England Patriots.
Hunt also said that the stadium will be the ideal place for the fans to tailgate, and it will also have more than 20,000 parking spots. The dome will include a seating bowl, and fans can visit the Lamar Hunt statue and experience the Chiefs Hall of Honor, which will be twice the size of the current one. The pre-game Drum Deck ceremony and Chiefs Ring of Honor, being above the bowl, are all traditional values taken from the current stadium.
Not only that, the construction of the stadium in Wyandotte County, along with a $300 million practice facility and team headquarters in Olathe, and $1.2 billion in privately funded ancillary developments, is expected to provide a $1.5 billion annual economic boost while supporting 8,500 full-time jobs each year.
Unified Government Mayor and CEO Christal Watson also praised the development, saying that it would help bring new investment to the city. Furthermore, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson said that it would bring “tens of millions of dollars of revenue for the state and create thousands of Kansas jobs.”
All in all, this is going to be one of the biggest projects in Kansas, but with Hunt slightly hinting at a name change of the new stadium, will the fans still deem it as valuable as their current gem?