There is a reason why Clark Hunt currently finds himself as the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs. The son of former owner Lamar Hunt, whose named is embedded in the AFC Championship trophy, he has to possess some business savvy to have success atop the Chiefs organization.
So when the relocation meeting took place earlier this month, it wasn’t a surprise that Hunt was the only member of the six-person committee on relocation to vote against suggesting the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders stadium plan in Carson, California. Instead, he recommended the Rams-only plan in Inglewood to the rest of the league’s owners.
Hunt’s public position was clear. He didn’t believe the Los Angeles area could have sustained success as a two-team market. This despite the fact that Los Angeles is the nation’s second-largest media market.
Within the Chiefs’ brass, the stance was likely more about how relocation would impact the organization itself.
Could Kansas City take advantage of being the only NFL team in Missouri?
Chiefs president Mark Donovan talked about this topic recently, mainly focusing on what type of marketing approach his organization would take in St. Louis now that the Rams are in Los Angeles:
“I’ve gotten texts and emails from fans saying I’m now a Chiefs fan, and we appreciate all that,” Donovan said, via The Kansas City Star. “But we’re going to take a strategic approach to that — we’re going to be respectful. They’ve been through a really tough process.
Not wanting to be seen as cold and calculated, this is a perfect stance for the Chiefs to take publicly.
It doesn’t change the fact that Hunt had been a big proponent on Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s plan to uproot his team to Los Angeles. His vote as a member of the six-member board on relocation magnifies this to a T.
At the end of the day, NFL owners voted in favor of a compromise set forth by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones — a vote that enabled the Rams to move to Inglewood with the Chargers being given the option to follow suit.
This was a rather stunning development considering the league’s committee on relocation voted to recommend the Carson project. The eventual decision to send the Rams to Inglewood received 30 of a possible 32 votes.
Hunt may have been against the division realignment that would have came with an improved Carson project. After all, either the Chargers or Raiders would have had to move out of the AFC West if they were to share a stadium.
As the son of one of the NFL’s forefathers, Hunt may have also wanted to keep the traditional rivalries we have seen in the AFC West over the years. He also could have strongly believed that a two-team Los Angeles market wouldn’t have worked.
That’s all fine and dandy. But as we saw during this whole process, the modern NFL is governed by money. As a relatively new member of the league’s power elite, Kroenke’s seemingly unprecedented ascension up the owner ranks is a prime example of this.
If governed by what’s best for the Chiefs as an organization (their own bottom line), it makes perfect sense that Hunt and Co. would want to take full advantage of a one-team Missouri market.
Even considering the marketing possibilities in St. Louis publicly, the Chiefs have made it clear that they aren’t going to avoid an attempt to win over for the former Rams home market:
“The way the league rules work, there are differences with tickets, broadcast, television and radio (and) what you can and can’t do,” Donovan said. “Because it’s in the state we’re in, we have some rights there from a marketing perspective, but you’ve seen other teams reach out already. Indianapolis put a little campaign together to welcome fans over to Indy, and like I said, we’ll be strategic about it but we’ll be respectful about it.”
The Chiefs president went on to indicate that they are in conversations with the league regarding the possibility of their games being aired in St. Louis.
So there you have it. Without a football team for the first time in over two decades, St. Louis can now look forward to the Chiefs attempting to take advantage of their misfortune.
Such is the nature of the beast in today’s money-driven NFL. And not a single person can blame the Chiefs.