Kansas City sports fans are psychopaths, but, like, the “Midwest Nice” kind of psychopath. Plenty of places have affinity for a certain team–like St. Louis and the Cardinals, Chicago and the Cubs, Dallas
and the Cowboys–but Kansas City is unique in that the city will support well-run teams with their whole chest no matter the sport.
It helps that most sports only overlap a little bit over each other. But there’s only so much time, money, and energy to go around. Team success will pull casual fans in, and team stumbles will push casual fans away. Yes, the size of the different leagues matter, and yet that fact still holds.
The Royals have therefore been playing on hard mode for a while. The Chiefs have been kings of the metro for most of a decade, having appeared in five of the last six Super Bowls and winning three of them. During most of that time, the Royals were very, very bad–and when the Royals started winning, so too did the Current, playing an incredibly joyful and winning brand of soccer in a shiny new stadium.
But things are different this year. The Chiefs were already functionally eliminated from the playoffs even before Patrick Mahomes’ ACL tear on Sunday, but that injury was the final punctuation that marked the Chiefs’ official elimination. It’s the first time since the 2014 season that the Chiefs won’t be in the playoffs.
Gee..2014. Sound like a familiar year for Royals fans?
One of the biggest factors in the magical fall of 2014 was the pent-up demand for sports greatness. Just eight months prior, the Chiefs blew a 28-point playoff lead to the Indianapolis Colts, extending Kansas City’s football playoff win drought to an even 20 years. Kansas City’s baseball playoff drought had reached 29 years.
The NFL machine is a terrifying thing, always in motion, always gobbling up attention. Still, I think it has mattered to the Royals that their neighbors were carrying out one of the most impressive runs and strongest dynasties in NFL history. By being so good, the Chiefs were extending their season into February nearly every year for seven years.
This year is different. When the Royals hold their annual Royals Rally event at the end of January, the Chiefs won’t have played for weeks. When the Royals kick off Spring Training, Mahomes and Travis Kelce won’t be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in downtown Kansas City. And when the Chiefs start their own season, Mahomes likely won’t be cleared to play yet, dampening expectations and excitement.
I want to be clear here: the Chiefs are not the enemy. I would rather see the Chiefs be great, and watching them during their dynastic run has been a blast. We just have to be realistic here. There is some newly available hype and attention the Royals can cultivate next year. Winning their first home opener since 2022 would be a nice start. Regardless, making the playoffs would be a bigger deal in 2026 for Kansas City sports fans than it might have been in years past, and seeing more people at the K will only bring more energy and fun to the year.
