2023 NFL Draft: Kansas City is having a moment — again

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Joe Reardon and David Pruente boarded a crowded bus after attending the World Cup fanfest in Qatar earlier this fall, they found themselves next to a 12-year-old from Iran.

As they made small talk with the boy, they asked each other where they were from. Reardon, the president of Kansas City’s chamber of commerce, and Pruente, a vice president for the chamber, said they were from the United States.

“The 12-year-old said to David, where in the United States are you from? And David said, well, you’re not going to know it, but I’m from Kansas City,” Reardon said. “And he’s like ‘Oh I know, that’s where Patrick Mahomes plays with the Chiefs.’”

Kansas City’s efforts to host the 2023 NFL Draft and other large sporting events began long before the Chiefs traded up to the 10th overall draft pick to take the two-time Super Bowl champion and NFL MVP Mahomes in 2017.

Roughly a decade ago, Kathy Nelson and the rest of the Kansas City Sports Commission set out on a 10-year-plan to bring sporting events to the city. The plan has undoubtedly been a success. Over the past handful of years, Kansas City has become a host site for multiple NCAA tournament events, including men’s basketball regionals.

And not only will the NFL Draft begin Thursday night on the front lawn of the city’s historic Union Station, but Kansas City was selected over many other bigger cities to host World Cup games in 2026.

Kansas City is, without a doubt, a sports city. And that would even be the case if the Chiefs hadn't won two Super Bowls over the last four seasons.

"I think being a sports city means we’ve taken 10 years to craft a strategy of what this means,” Nelson, the president of the sports commission said. “Of how do we attract — whether it’s the USA Volleyball Championships that we just hosted over Easter weekend … to welcoming the Division I men’s wrestling championship next year to the NFL Draft, there was a strategy and a thought process behind that.”

That process has included projects and investments that aren’t solely related to sports either. Kansas City has undergone a radical change in recent decades, and many of those improvements are why the city has attracted events like the draft and the World Cup.

Just look at Union Station. The 110-year-old train station is the focal point of many of Kansas City’s most iconic photographs and has served as the city’s front yard for sports celebrations. The Royals’ World Series parade in 2015 and both the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parades in 2020 and earlier this year have culminated at the same location where NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will be announcing who the Carolina Panthers take with the first pick of the draft.

“This isn’t a random hotel ballroom in Kansas City, even though I love all our hotels as the mayor,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said. “It’s instead the exact same place where the Chiefs were just standing and saying we look forward to [winning the Super Bowl] again and Travis Kelce talking about a dynasty — all that sort of stuff. And that’s amazingly where we are. To me, it’s probably odd being a native Kansas Citian how much I expect this to just go off pretty easily. I wonder if we hadn’t had the Super Bowls, would we be this relaxed, kind of, as we go to it. But having had them, we know how to win, we know big deal events, we know big stars and we know it can all work well in Kansas City."

Nearly 30 years ago, the station was in a state of massive disrepair. If the five Kansas and Missouri counties that make up the Kansas City metropolitan area hadn’t approved a sales tax increase to fund its restoration in 1996, the station was headed for demolition.

The city’s downtown arena opened in 2007 in conjunction with an entertainment district across the street and hotel and apartment construction soon followed. Nine years later, the city opened up a free streetcar system that shuttles residents and visitors from the north side of downtown to Union Station that will serve as the primary mode of transportation for the thousands of people set to attend the draft.

More recently, the city’s new airport opened Feb. 28. The previous iteration of KCI had long been a point of derision for travelers arriving from out-of-town because of its dark and drab atmosphere, cramped quarters and lack of amenities. It was an extremely uninviting first and last impression of the city for air travelers.

The new version is the opposite of that, with high ceilings, lots of light, and plenty of food and restrooms. Oh, and it smells like barbecue too. It’s nearly impossible to see Kansas City attracting the draft or the World Cup if the new airport doesn’t exist.

“There’s no one, when they said, ‘Let’s save Union Station’ that could have ever imagined with the Royals winning the World Series, when the Chiefs celebrate two Super Bowls, that where do those things happen? Right in front of Union Station,” Reardon said. “Where does the NFL Draft happen? Right in front of Union Station. No one could have predicted that when we decided to save it. In the same way, no one was saying that if we get a new terminal at KCI that we’re going to compete for the NFL Draft and the World Cup. No one could have predicted that. But when we make commitments to those improvements in our city, they can lead to unexpected opportunities.”

Patrick Mahomes, Rams' exit helped Chiefs seize regional sporting power

The Chiefs moved up 17 spots to take Mahomes in 2017 despite the presence of four-year starter Alex Smith on the roster. While Smith had been a solidly above-average quarterback in his time in Kansas City, he was also the latest in a string of Chiefs starting QBs who had been acquired via free agency or trade.

Before Mahomes, the Chiefs hadn’t taken a quarterback in the first round since selecting Todd Blackledge in 1983, and the most recent quarterback drafted by the Chiefs to start for the franchise was Brodie Croyle in 2010.

After sitting behind Smith for most of the 2017 season, Mahomes made his first start in the final game of the regular season. It was clear in that game that Mahomes was the team’s quarterback of the future. Smith was traded to Washington in the offseason after the Chiefs lost yet another home playoff game.

Kansas City was awarded the NFL Draft in 2019, months after Mahomes had won the NFL MVP award in his first season as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback. A year later, the Chiefs won their first Super Bowl in 50 years as Mahomes solidified his status as the most famous young quarterback in the NFL.

That immediate success with Mahomes quickly established the Chiefs as one of the most prominent franchises in the NFL and came just a few years after the Rams had left St. Louis for Los Angeles. The Chiefs had always been somewhat of a regional team, with many fans in neighboring states like Nebraska and Kansas. But the Rams’ departure and the Chiefs’ rise has also made the Chiefs the preferred team of much of the state of Missouri. With no other NFL franchise within 400 miles of Kansas City, the Chiefs have truly become a regional team.

“This clearly became Missouri’s team very quickly,” Lucas said, “and a team for so much more of the region that folks even anticipated or knew before.”

K.C.'s World Cup power play further solidifies its strong standing

There was cautious optimism in Kansas City in the early summer of 2022 ahead of the 2026 World Cup host city announcements. While Kansas City was one of the smallest metro areas bidding to host World Cup games, community leaders felt they had a strong case thanks to the impending opening of the new airport and the city’s strong recent track record for being chosen to hold large events like the NFL Draft.

Plus, the metro area also boasted the U.S. Soccer National Training and Coaching Development Center. The facility opened in 2018 and could serve as the training center hub for national teams playing games in Kansas City.

Yet it was still a surprise to some across the country that Kansas City was picked as one of the 11 American hosts for the North American World Cup. It beat other large cities like Chicago and Denver for the right to host games and was the only city in the Midwest to have a winning bid.

“In my world, where I always felt I was trying to cross the finish line shortly after St. Louis, I now feel that I’m crossing with them," Nelson said. "And I feel like I’m on an equal playing field now with my counterparts in St. Louis because sometimes they win things and sometimes we do and normally it was them winning and us taking what was second.”

That selection just months before it was set to host this year’s draft further solidified Kansas City’s status as a Midwest sports hub. Fifteen years ago with the Royals and Chiefs both at the basement of their respective leagues, it was hard to envision Kansas City as one of the focal points of the American sporting world. Yet thanks to tireless work from Nelson and the sports commission and some help from the star power of the NFL’s most prominent player, Kansas City has arrived on the national stage. And it’s not leaving anytime soon.

“The downtown skyline, Roger Goodell and these great players having this moment be indelibly etched in what it is to be Kansas City,” Lucas said when asked what he was most looking forward to Thursday night. “We’re used to very cool moments with the Royals and Chiefs twice in that space … This is like, ‘Oh my God, we’re going national with it.’ ”