Chiefs Tailgating Policy Change

The Kansas City Chiefs will be hosting their first home game vs the San Francisco 49ers Sept. 23. As soon as Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker kicks off the ball at the start of the game, the Chiefs administration will work to clear the stadium parking lot of all tailgaters.

The Chiefs administration have decided to implement tighter tailgating restrictions for the 2018-2019 football season. After kickoff, security team members will go throughout the parking lot, asking people with tickets to enter the game, and telling fans without tickets to leave the premises.

Chiefs President Mark Donovan, who referred to the Chiefs as the “Kings of tailgating,” announced the policy change at the Chiefs Kickoff Luncheon Aug. 24. The administration was motivated to make this change after the release of the NFL’s best practices — a list of recommendations for teams to take into consideration for the next season. This year’s list included a line that may have a large effect on Chiefs fans: “Stop tailgating at kickoff.”

“We know our fans pretty well,” Donovan stated at the luncheon. “We know the importance of tailgating. However, there are some really strong points [for the policy] on the safety and security standpoint.”

Senior Will Stapp tailgates before every Chiefs game he attends, and while he agrees that the rule could be helpful in controlling unruly fans, he questions if it is safe for some of the tailgaters without tickets to drive home right after kickoff.

“It is a good rule to have if you don’t want unwanted guests in the parking lot, but it can also bring up the question if you really want some of those tailgaters driving home at that instant,” Stapp said. “I think that could bring up some big problems as well.”

While the policy is officially set to be put into action sometime this season, Donovan and the rest of the Chiefs administrative team has stressed that the new rule will be slowly introduced to the fans. During the last preseason game at Arrowhead stadium on Aug. 30, the Chiefs administration said that the rule wasn’t executed at all. They did this in order to see how many fans tailgated without tickets and in turn estimate how many of their fans the policy would impact.

“It is definitely a change, but it is something we believe we are going to transition into,” Donovan stated. “We took a lot of time, we spent a lot of hours on the phone with the league to explain our position. They understand it and we will transition through this and implement it with the next game and we will go throughout the season.”

During each game, the Chiefs typically hire around 12 officers from the KCMO Police Department and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department to manage security. According to Sergeant Jake Becchina, the officers at the stadium respond to an average of three to five disturbances during a game and the same number after a game. These calls are most commonly for disorderly conduct.

Bechinna is unsure if the new policy will do much to lower the number of disturbances that occur each game, due to the fact that most of the issues the officers attend to either happen in the game or in the parking lot after the game.

“I think it will be some time before we know what, if any, effect there will be, at least until next year,” Becchina said.  “My hunch is that since there are not many issues in the parking lots during the game it may be hard to see an appreciable result, but time will tell.”

This is not the first time that the Chiefs have made major policy changes based on the NFL best practices. In previous years after the list has been released to the teams, the Chiefs have followed many of the recommendations given to them. They started only allowing clear bags or small clutches into the games, installed walk-through metal detectors, called magnetometers, at the stadium entrances and started their second perimeter which included hiring extra security staff positioned outside the stadium.

“Best practices are recommendations for us that they believe make the most sense for every organization in the NFL,” Donovan stated. “But every year we look at them and we say, ‘OK, how does this apply to us?’ We did that with the clear bag policy, we did that with our second perimeter, we did that with magnetometers, we did that with all the various recommendations that came to us.”

Sophomore Quinn Cosgrove has attended all eight Chiefs home games since he was three years old. Cosgrove, who finds his seats every game in the second row of the 50 yard line, finds the policy harsh towards the fan base.  

“I think they should just let people have fun and do whatever,” Cosgrove said. “Should there be people monitoring, just occasionally going by and making sure that no one is dead? Sure. But I don’t think they should be kicking people out of the parking lot. I think it is a bit much.”

Not only does Cosgrove believe the policy is harsh, he is also worried that it could have a huge effect on the culture of Chiefs tailgating, which he recognizes is a definitive characteristic of Chiefs’ fans.

“I have been to different NFL games all over and I can tell you that tailgating at the chiefs stadium is never going to be beaten,” Cosgrove said. “I don’t know if it is the fans or the food, but there is just something about it that makes it that much better.”