The above headline is what you would call a leading question…
Right up there with, “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Then again, if you’ve been to a Chiefs game – with the possible exception of in the top notch club level seats – you’ve probably seen how disgusting the fan behavior at Arrowhead Stadium can be.
For years – until a handful of years back – my family had 50 yard line, club level seats for both the Chiefs and the Wizards.
No mas.
Last time I attended did a game I was on lower level, 35 yard line – in pretty decent seats – but having lead a comparatively sheltered life, it was an eye opener.
As in rude and crude – an entirely different experience than I was accustomed to.
Let’s cut to the chase with the following comment posted earlier today on KCC:
“Are Chiefs fans good fans?
“The latest act by a chief’s fan is shining a laser beam into Tom Brady’s face. That comes after several ‘chief fans’ pelted Colt players with potentially dangerous snow/ice balls. A few years back a visiting player complained he was taunted with the “N” word by a ‘fan’ and these are just the behaviors that have been publicized. Add to all of that the weekly disrespect shown Native Americans with the tomahawk chop and that silly boring adolescent chant and a pattern begins to develop.
“Clark Hunt, the ultimate boss is culpable by allowing that the chant music, that stupid drum and warpaint.
“Hopefully most fans who “Chop” are just not thinking things through. Still, having said that, fans who engage in any of the above behaviors are not good fans and you could make a case that they’re not even good people for at least 20 days a year.
“PS. Food for thought for the Chiefs players. If the Chiefs fans engage in disrespectful behavior toward Native American people that all can hear on Sundays, what disrespectful things do you think are being said by many of those same fans that you can’t hear?”
Couple years back Arrowhead Addict’s Chris Taylor wrote a column under the headline, “Why Kansas City Chiefs Fans Are The Worst”
“Recently, Kansas City Chiefs fans were named the worst in the NFL According to a study put on by the Emory University Department of Football Analytics, the Chiefs fan base is horrible…According to this study, fans of the Chiefs ranked dead last overall, as well as last in social edacity, or was it social equity?”
Prior top that Florida’s New Times came up with 9 Reasons Chiefs fans are the worst…
Everything from just plain being “assholes” to outdoor parking lot “coitus” with their clothes partially on to committing murder and…barbecuing…you know, tailgating.
“Enough with the barbecue, we get it,” it begins.
“Ohhh lookit we have the best barbecue in all the land! Enough with that shit, Kansas City. Knock it off. It’s barbecue. It’s cooked meat and sauce. You’re not curing cancer here and you’re not changing the world in any way shape or form. You’re throwing dead pig flesh onto a hot grill and then slathering it in brown sauce and spices and salt. BUT IT’S SALT YOU CAN’T FIND SALT ANYWHERE ELSE. Oh sure, it’s delicious and it’s tasty and it’s good tailgate food.
“But you know where else you can get meat slathered in sauce that’s really tasty and delicious? EVERY OTHER DAMN CITY IN AMERICA.
“Oh but ours is the best. No, it’s not. Yours tastes like every other BBQ. Know who gives a shit about this kind of thing? You, people that watch Food Network and fat people.
“Otherwise, no one truly gives a shit.”
Uh, that’s telling us, I guess…
As for the infamous tomahawk chop, the Chiefs and local media have been up and down on that topic for 20 years.
As I recall, at one point the Chiefs talked about not playing the phony cowboy and indian movie muzak that encourages it.
But they sure as heck play it now.
Here’s what one Chiefs season ticket holder told me a few years back:
“They should stop playing the music that encourages the chop. They shouldn’t encourage that. The inescapable mistake they make every week is when they play that music – the old Hollywood music from when the indians were about to attack and kill all the white people. The movies played it when the indians were coming to take the white women away.”
The bottom line: while the tomahawk chop may be politically incorrect and boring, it’s right up there with barbecuing among the less rude things one’s likely to encounter at a Chiefs game.
Never ceases to amaze me. You don’t like it, don’t go. You don’t like sports, don’t watch. You are worried about the environment, stay home. You don’t like the cost, don’t pay it. There are plenty of useless things you can cover in the “entertainment” world that doesn’t involve an issue/venue/past time that you’ve proven to hate. This horse is dead…..and beating it makes you sound like you don’t have much else to opine about.
Geez, Richard…
Let me get this straight; if people like, say, Chiefs games but don’t want to get cursed, beaten up or barfed on they should just keep it in their pants and stay home? They have no right – in your humble estimation – of wanting to enjoy an event sans the grotesque behavior of other people in the crowd?
The fact that a lot of people view things contrary to the way that you do makes the issue “dead.”
Interesting perspective, wild man
Have to agree with Hearne on this one.
As I live and breath, Super Dave!
HC, I can’t really take issue with any of the behaviors you mention, but let’s be honest. This is sports fandom everywhere. Pro AND college. Always has been and always will be. While going to live sporting events used to be something I enjoyed, technology advancements have made the home-viewing experience BETTER. Well, in my opinion. The only drunk asshole I enjoy watching sports with is myself. Being next to some stranger yelling this, that or the other to the players, coaches and referees ALL game long has lost its appeal. As a general rule, large groups of people tend to be annoying as hell. Mix in 3 to 5 hours of drinking before the event even starts and you have tens of thousands of people who feel they MUST be part of the game. Thank you, no. Now, I’ve had a couple of occasions the last year or two to be given some all-you-can-eat & drink suite tickets at the Chiefs. Interesting to see how the other half lives. Good gawd.
Well said, Jimbo…
I think it’s gotten a lot more barbaric than it used to be, Speaking of which, parents at kids events hazing referees and the like.
I look at the Chiefs fans on TV w a lot of work, if nothing elsehen they do the crowd shots of everybody just out-and-out bellowing throughout the entire time the other team has the ball and wonder…what are they really getting out of doing that.
Seems like a lot of work, if nothing else.
Maybe it’s therapy and keeps them from beating their spouses and kids or going “postal” on the job.
Yopu’re right about one thing; and that’s the amount of time the Chiefs allocate for everybody to get beyond belief drunk before the games.
I’ve got a pretty good party pedigree on my resume, but things never unfolded anything like it does at Arrowhead
Gotta agree with Jim. This behavior isn’t exclusive to KC. It’s everywhere. The douchebag Chiefs fan who dropped a flying elbow thru a flaming table while his inbred friends did the tomahawk chop, was just imitating some moron from Buffalo he saw on YouTube. Raiders fans stab opposing fans in the parking lot. San Diego and LA Rams fans brawl in the stands over whose stadium they are playing in. Steelers and Ravens fans get into drunken brawls with each other on the regular. It got so bad in Philly years back that they had a makeshift courthouse complete with a judge in the bowels of old Veteran’s Stadium so they could process these assholes on the spot. But I do get a good laugh out of watching the Raytown and Independence white trash illustrate why they are still living in a mobile home and spending all their money on Natty Light and red body paint. Fucking rubes. And people wonder why KC is labeled by the rest of the U.S. as a hick town.
Easy guy, not everyone can grow up in 64112 or 66208
I grew up in a farming community of less than 2500 people. At least 2 hours from a metro area. Son of a factory worker. So it’s not about where you grow up. It’s about how you choose to conduct yourself once you become an adult. If as a grown man you want to become an obese fat slob who paints his entire body red and acts like a drunken jackass, you can fully expect me to point at you and laugh and have utter disdain for you.
“How Bad Do Chiefs Fans Suck?”
– no worse (nor better) than the team, league and officiating that they suck for today.
_______________
Yesteryear, Kansas City pro football (as sports crowds otherwise) brought passion no less vigorous thence. Difference? Deportment. If not perfect harmony, good old days fans ‘were’ in fact demonstrably better than today’s rabble.
Baseball your fave, some Kansas City A’s crowd/field video 1965, Municipal Stadium ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IktJYYLgG5U
Football ‘natives restless’ for a winner a fourth season here, Municipal Stadium time capsule 1966 – (8:09 to 8:49 mark) – “the largest gathering ever to witness a sporting event in Kansas City” (43,885; also a nice shot the ‘B.C. Christopher Co.’ tom-tom. ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6LFeSeOGkk
No Belly Boy, KC Wolf or Krazy George… no parking lot disasters, pat-downs or clear bag policies. Sam’s Stadium Parking, cheerleaders, Tony DiPardo Pack Band, George Toma’s masterpiece field art, War Paint, fans and football… and a team was made up the best players (still) the franchise has ever put on the playing surface (even though they underachieved mightily, hindsight), mid/latter 1960’s was more than sufficient, terms football prowess AND entertainment.
To wit, a better game/team then (Superbowl bound), ‘professional’ player conduct (no gyrations/showboating ad nauseam) and superior fan decorum (adults attired in their ‘Sunday best’ a noticeable extent, young autograph seekers afield.)
Missing? The ‘one big party’ atmosphere today which includes tailgating (and all it brings), trash talking, terrorizing opposition (and even homegrown) players & fans (snowballs, laser lights, beat-downs, etc.)… just another day incivility, K.C. as D.C., Arrowhead as Congress, your street as mine, right up our avenue.
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Thanks Kerouac for the video links. Pretty cool. Went there often as a kid.
All that was not enough (it is), today marks 17,909 days passed since the Chiefs were not swiss, our Superbowl drought not serving ‘wait till next year’… part 2019… verse 50. Could it be this interminable ‘waiting’ is what ails us, two early Superbowl’s first four years, replaced zero nigh on half a century?
Fan base long drought (57 years) recently crowned ‘World Champions’ (Philadelphia Eagles) any indication, the likelihood Kansas City faithful will act any less obnoxious than their NFL peers ‘City of Brotherly Love’, doubtful… seems ‘anything goes’ today, anywhere.
Philosophy 101 for the Chiefs fan (parenthesis inserted courtesy Kerouac):
“Paradise was unendurable, otherwise, the first man would have adapted to it… this world (NFL) is no less so since here we regret paradise (January 1970) or anticipate another one. What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough.”
~ Cioran (E M would have made a fine Chiefs fan, replying ‘What do you do from morning to night?’ with “I endure myself” (moment to moment, season to season, decade to decade, cradle to grave, 1969 to… )
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Hey Hearne, have you ever been to the PGA’s Waste Management Phoenix Open? Talk about debauchery, and that’s a freaking golf tournament! It really is everywhere there’s live sports & alcohol. Just different degrees. You could actually write the same column for the Buffalo Bills and the Bills mafia. Ever tailgated there? They actually make Chief’s fans look like prudes. Google it sometime if you have the inclination and stomach. I have had the good fortune to go to different venues and sports all over the country, and would say that Arrowhead is certainly middle-of-the road for bad behavior. Not excusing it certainly, but you could do worse that’s for sure.
Interesting, Shawnster…
Hard to imagine the golf groupies acting up like that. Do they allow tailgating?
Absolutely!! Check out the 16th hole! It’s a combination of Coachella, the infield of the Kentucky Derby, and the snakepit at the Indy 500. Check it out sometime!
Years ago us bronco fans were deemed the worst fan base by mainly chiefs fans. Well guess what, all you chief fans have become what u hated, and worse. And that’s hard to do, be worse than bronco fans. But you all are so laughs on you schmucks.
Maybe that explains why the Chiefs fans donated $500,000 to the Buffalo Children’s hospital in $13 checks in honor of winning the Buffalo playoff game a week ago.
Uh, nice try