Kansas City Chiefs need to promote their players better
The Kansas City Chiefs have never been one of the most exciting sports teams in existence. They play football in Kansas City, which is one of the smaller NFL cities, but the organization needs to start hyping their own players.
NFL on ESPN recently tweeted out the best selling jerseys in every state in the United States. Some were pretty obvious, like Tom Brady being the best selling jersey in Massachusetts, Von Miller leading things in Colorado, and Aaron Rodgers being at the top in Wisconsin.
None of those are surprising at all. Everyone expects those players to be at the top of the jersey lists in those states because that’s where those guys play football at.
This tweet, however, showed that people in Kansas and Missouri really don’t care about Kansas City Chiefs players all that much though. The best selling jersey in Missouri was Tom Brady (what?) and the best seller in Kansas was Marshawn Lynch, who plays for the Oakland Raiders now.
Beast Mode is taking over the west coast. pic.twitter.com/V5xsRA1Im1
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) July 19, 2017
What this tells me is that the Kansas City Chiefs don’t do a good job at branding their players very well. How can a team that has superstars like Eric Berry, Travis Kelce, and Marcus Peters not be leading in their own state when it comes to jersey sales?
Berry is loved by nearly everyone in the NFL for his heroic story from a few years ago. The guy beat cancer. Everyone wants an Eric Berry jersey!
Kelce had his own dating show on E! last fall. He’s notorious in the league for his dance moves and throwing shade at other players (and sometimes for throwing objects at referees, but that’s a whole other story) and is becoming one of the best tight ends in the game. How does he not lead in Kansas or Missouri?
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Peters is a rising star at cornerback and both talks the talk and walks the walk. He’s going to be a freak for the rest of his career, so how is he not leading in jersey sales?
The Chiefs don’t appear to really care about promoting their players. When Kelce was starring in his own dating show, did you ever hear the team mention it (whether in person or online)? The answer is no.
In some stadiums, you’ll see every player’s charity behind the end zones and throughout the venue. Arrowhead doesn’t seem to be one of those stadiums, which needs to change.
When it comes down to it, people don’t tend to think of KC Chiefs players as cool and that’s a problem. The fact that Kansas, which is a 15-20 minute drive from Arrowhead Stadium, has bought more Marshawn Lynch jerseys than Travis Kelce jerseys is a huge problem.
I planned on buying a new Chiefs jersey this year and now will definitely be doing so. Maybe I’ll take my laptop and purchase said jersey on the state line between Kansas and Missouri so that it counts towards both state’s totals.
At the end of the day, is this really a big deal? Probably not, but it’s frustrating. The Raiders are a national draw and Marshawn Lynch has always been popular, but come on, Kansas. First you all apparently hate Seinfeld and now you’re buying Lynch jerseys? Get it together, Kansas.