Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. They are members of the Western Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). more...

Home
Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Baltimore Ravens
Buffalo Bills
CFL
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Defunct Teams
Denver Broncos
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Kansas City Chiefs
Caps, Hats
Car Accessories
Helmets
Jackets
Jerseys
Jewelry & Watches
Keychains
Other Items
Photos, Prints
Pins, Buttons
Shirts
Signs
Miami Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
New York Giants
New York Jets
Oakland Raiders
Other NFL Items
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Diego Chargers
San Francisco 49ers
Seattle Seahawks
St. Louis Rams
Super Bowl
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Washington Redskins
XFL

Originally called the Dallas Texans, the club was founded by Lamar Hunt in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League. The team moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs in 1963 after then-Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle guaranteed the team they would have increased ticket sales. The Chiefs then joined the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL Merger.

The Chiefs hold the distinction of being the second AFL team (after the New York Jets) to defeat an NFL club in an AFL-NFL World Championship Game when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.

Franchise history

AFL

In 1959 Lamar Hunt, son of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, began discussions with other businessmen to establish an American football organization that would rival the National Football League. The organization would later be known as the American Football League, and Hunt established a team of his own for the league after being denied ownership of an NFL franchise. The Dallas Texans, as they were known then, shared the Cotton Bowl with the NFL's cross-town competition, the Dallas Cowboys.

In one of the Texans' biggest games, they defeated the Houston Oilers in a dramatic 1962 AFL Championship that went into double overtime. Until the December 25, 1971, playoff game between the Chiefs and Dolphins, the game was the longest ever played at over 77 minutes.

After three seasons — including an AFL championship in 1962 — it was apparent that Dallas couldn't support two teams. Hunt investigated opportunities to move his team to several cities for the 1963 season, wanting to find a city to which he could commute easily from Dallas. He eventually turned to Kansas City, where Mayor H. Roe Bartle persuaded him to move to the Midwest.

Most impressive about this move was the support the team received from the community even before the team announced the move. Hunt made the move dependent upon the ability of Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle and the Kansas City community to guarantee him 35,000 in season ticket sales. Hunt had arrived at this number because that was the Texans' average attendance at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

Hunt, with a roster replete with players who had played college football in Texas, wanted to maintain a lineage to the team’s roots and wanted to call the club the "Kansas City Texans". "The Lakers stayed the Lakers when they moved from Minnesota to California", he reasoned. "But Jack Steadman convinced me that wasn’t too smart. It wouldn’t sell." The team was renamed the Kansas City Chiefs—one of the most popular suggestions Hunt received in a name-the-team contest, along with "Kansas City Mules" — and began playing in Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium in 1963.

Read more at Wikipedia.org