Lamar Hunt spent $25,000 for franchise, now Chiefs are worth billions
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs are the hottest commodity in sports right now.
With back-to-back Super Bowls and three Lombardi Trophies earned within the last five years, there’s no denying that they’re currently the most prolific franchise rolling. A dynasty was born after Super Bowl LVIII.
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How does all this winning affect the organization’s value?
Since the 2019-2020 NFL season, the Chiefs have inflated by at least $2 billion. The franchise was worth $2.3 billion in 2019, according to Statista. After three Super Bowl appearances and two rings, the team’s value rose to $4.3 billion by August of 2023.
Kansas City ranks just 23rd among all 32 NFL teams in Forbes valuations even with dominating the competition. That may change after the latest championship run, but who knows how far up the valuation leaderboard they will rise until Forbes releases its 2024 report in late summer or early fall.
Winning Super Bowls doesn’t always correlate to the largest jump in a franchise’s value. Forbes 2023 report shows the Tennessee Titans increased by almost $1 billion in worth from 2022 to 2023. That is a 26% year-over-year increase which is a higher percentage than any other NFL organization in that period.
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The Chiefs and the Titans were both worth $3.7 billion in 2022, but now Tennessee is worth $1 million more despite the team not making a playoff appearance since 2021. Other factors affecting a franchise’s value include geographic location, stadium deals and brand power.
The Dallas Cowboys still dominate the league in overall worth with a whopping $9 billion valuation in 2023. America’s Team has a trifecta of a rapidly growing metropolitan, a stadium with constant upgrades and the strongest brand in the sport.
Right behind Dallas are the New England Patriots valued at $7 billion. They made their largest jump in worth in 2021 gaining $1.4 billion ($5B to $6.4B) by the 2022 season.
Boston’s nationally ninth-ranked designated market area (DMA or media market) is key to their success, but brand power may be an even bigger factor as the Patriots’ value ballooned over the last two decades while Bill Belichick and Tom Brady stacked six championships.
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Consider this: New England football is worth more than nine of ten franchises in higher-ranked media markets like New York (Giants and Jets), Los Angeles (Chargers and Rams), and Chicago (Bears).
That kind of brand power is what the Chiefs are working their way toward. Kansas City’s 33rd-ranked DMA won’t move the needle as much as the continued postseason success the Chiefs have reaped ever since starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes in 2019.
The Chiefs brand has had a strong foothold within the football landscape since the franchise’s birth in 1960. Founder Lamar Hunt pioneered the American Football League and spent $25,000 to launch one of the eight original AFL teams, the Dallas Texans.
Accounting for inflation, $25K in 1960 would be approximately $260,838 in 2024.
In 1959, the Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans) and Buffalo Bills were also bought for $25,000, according to Forbes. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the only franchise still in operation that was bought for less money, paying just $2,500 ($58,539 in 2024). Granted, that was in 1933, almost 30 years before Hunt founded the Texans.
Hunt’s franchise was in Dallas for just three seasons. He noticed that they weren’t competing financially with the NFL’s Cowboys, so after winning the 1962 AFL Championship, the Texans uprooted, moved to Kansas City and rebranded to the Chiefs they’re known as today.
The Chiefs went on to win two more AFL Championships while the Super Bowl-era merger commenced. The three AFL championships won in 1962, 1966 and 1969 are more than any other team during the decade the league was alive.
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With that AFL title in 1966, the Chiefs earned a trip to the first-ever Super Bowl versus the Green Bay Packers. The brand only grew in stature when Kansas City went on to win Super Bowl IV against the Minnesota Vikings.
Hunt proved that not only was the AFL-NFL merger going to make a stronger overall product, but his Kansas City Chiefs led by head coach Hank Stram and quarterback Len Dawson were a team to be reckoned with from the very beginning.
Fast forward to 2002, the first year publications began tracking NFL franchise values under a microscope. At that time the Chiefs were valued at $462,000 with Lamar’s son, and current owner, Clark Hunt at the head of the operation.
Just the one Lombardi Trophy from the 1969 season didn’t hold Kansas City back from year-over-year growth, surpassing a $1 billion valuation by 2008. The Hunt family saw it dip back below $1 billion in 2010 but then resurge in 2012 a year before they made their best coaching hire of all, Andy Reid.
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The franchise eclipsed a $2 billion valuation in 2017, the year Mahomes was drafted, and the Chiefs unsurprisingly saw their most growth begin after winning Super Bowl LIV in 2020. The largest one-year bump in worth came after the 2021 season where they went up $770,000 to reach a total value of over $3 billion for the first time.
The current $4.3 billion worth is a long way from being the most valued franchise in the NFL, but the Chiefs dynasty will likely grow that number the longer they dominate the league. A bonus is getting the Truman Sports Complex where Arrowhead Stadium sits all to themselves as the Kansas City Royals make the move downtown.
