Whether it was the back-to-back Super Bowl wins or the fact that half of one of the most beloved celebrity couples in the world was literally on their team, the Kansas City Chiefs seemed to count just about everyone and their mother as a fan by the end of last season.
But that’s not enough for the NFL champs, and this fall, the team has ambitions to cultivate an even larger, international fanbase, with points of engagement for everyone, regardless of age, location, or any other factor, Chiefs CMO and EVP of Marketing Lara Krug told Marketing Brew.
“We have ambitions and dreams of becoming the world’s team,” Krug said. “That’s what our North Star is. How do we make everyone around the world a Chiefs fan?”
Ahead of the team’s kickoff game Thursday against the Baltimore Ravens, we spoke to Krug about how the Chiefs are engaging new fans as they come while maintaining the vibes and values that longtime Chiefs supporters have come to know and love.
Tailgate time
For sports fans, there’s nothing quite like seeing your favorite team play on their home turf, but for some Chiefs fans, who Krug said are increasingly from around the world, that’s not always feasible. Last year, the Chiefs set out to connect virtually by hosting the “World’s Largest Tailgate” at the start of the season.
Tailgates are “very iconic to a Chiefs game and our stadium,” Krug said, so by making the experience virtual, she hoped it would give new fans a glimpse at the team’s values—family, community, and fun—and potentially convert more supporters along the way.
More than a million people tuned into last year’s livestreamed event, which was hosted by DJ/producer duo Two Friends and featured other celebrities and influencers, from Saturday Night Live’s Heidi Gardner, who is from Kansas City, to Donna Kelce, mom to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. That was enough proof of concept, Krug said—and this year, the Chiefs are running it back for their game against the Ravens.
This year’s event will be co-hosted by actor and comedian Rob Riggle and broadcaster Hayley Lewis, and it will feature live tailgate-themed games as well as prerecorded segments like AMA-style interviews with players. The second tailgate was designed with a younger audience in mind, Krug said, and the team plans to use content from the event to populate their social channels for weeks to come.
“At the end of the day, I believe that our social channels are really the entry point and the engagement point with consistency with our fans,” she said. “Each social channel is also very different in terms of what content works there.”
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On TikTok, where the Chiefs are the most-followed team in the league, the content is “a bit more fun, a bit more playful” than on other platforms, Krug said, whereas on YouTube, the team posts feature more episodic content, as well as Shorts.
In general, Krug told us the team—and the NFL overall—has been embracing “helmet-off” content in the past couple of years.
“The fans want to get to know the players,” she said. “We continue to obviously do our core game content…But we’ve certainly started to extend over the past couple years, and then accelerated over the last year, into much more lifestyle content.”
Hallmark era
The Chiefs’ content slate is about to expand even more this year, when the team will be the subject of its very own Hallmark movie, Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story. It’s about “a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan and her family…competing to win the team’s Fan of the Year contest,” per IMDB. There will be football, romance, and Donna Kelce, Krug said.
There will also, ideally, be even more brand exposure to new audiences via Hallmark’s fandom, Krug said. With themes of family and tradition, it’s meant to be authentic to the team’s longstanding values, too, she said. Hallmark, like the Chiefs, is based in Kansas City, making the partnership a “perfect marriage,” she added.
Krug hinted that there might be some movie-related news at this week’s tailgate. “Our hope is to integrate some of the fun things that are coming out later this year…Mama Kelce will be at the World’s Largest Tailgate again, and she’s obviously also in the Hallmark film, so there’s a lot of fun ways that we are trying to create connections for fans all the way through.”
Throughout the upcoming season, Krug said she wants to stick to the team’s values of “winning with character and uniting our fans” while finding ways to jump on “culturally relevant moments.” The team is also increasingly leveraging fan data—a developing theme in the sports marketing world—from across platforms to reach its marketing goals, Krug said.
“With so many new fans coming into Chiefs Kingdom, as we call it, we want to make sure that we’re…driving their love and consideration to hopefully come to a game and buy a ticket, or buy a piece of merch, by giving them more connection with who we are,” Krug said.