Arrowhead Stadium is an American football stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. It primarily serves as the home venue of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). The stadium has been officially named GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium (pronounced G.E.H.A.) since March 2021, following a naming rights deal between GEHA and the Chiefs. The agreement began at the start of the 2021 season and ends in January 2031 with the expiration of the leases for the Chiefs and Royals with the stadium's owner, the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority.
It is part of the Truman Sports Complex with adjacent Kauffman Stadium, the home of the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB). Arrowhead Stadium has a seating capacity of 76,416, making it the 24th-largest stadium in the United States and the fourth-largest NFL stadium. It is also the largest sports facility by capacity in the state of Missouri. A $375 million renovation was completed in 2010. The stadium is scheduled to host matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and has hosted college football games, as well as other soccer games.
History
When the Dallas Texans of the American Football League (AFL) relocated to Kansas City in 1963 and were rebranded as the Chiefs, they played their home games at Municipal Stadium. They originally shared the stadium with the Kansas City Athletics of Major League Baseball, but the Athletics relocated to Oakland, California, after the 1967 season, with the expansion Kansas City Royals being added in 1969.
Municipal Stadium, built in 1923 and mostly rebuilt in 1955, seated approximately 35,000 for football, but as part of the AFL–NFL merger announced in 1966, NFL stadiums would be required to seat no fewer than 50,000 people. Since the City of Kansas City was unable to find a suitable location for a new stadium, Jackson County stepped in and offered a location on the eastern edge of Kansas City near the interchange of Interstate 70 and Interstate 435.
Voters approved a $102 million bond issue in 1967 to build a new sports complex with two stadiums. The original design called for construction of side-by-side baseball and football stadiums with a common roof that would roll between them. The design proved to be more complicated and expensive than originally thought and so was scrapped in favor of the current open-air configuration. The Chiefs staff, led by team general manager Jack Steadman, helped develop the complex.
Construction
Construction began in 1968. The original two-stadium concept was initially designed by Denver architect Charles Deaton and Steadman. The baseball and football stadiums have a very different appearance, but share utilities, parking, and underground storage. Plans to have covered stadiums were dropped, leaving two open-air stadiums. Lamar Hunt included an owner's suite, complete with three bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room, to the design of the football stadium. To increase seating while limiting the stadium's footprint, the upper sections were placed at a steep incline which cannot be replicated in modern stadiums due to accessibility regulations.
Deaton's design was implemented by the Kansas City architectural firm of Kivett & Myers. Arrowhead Stadium is considered by some to have had an influence on the design of several future NFL stadiums. Construction of the stadium was a joint venture Sharp-Kidde-Webb construction firms.
1970s
Construction on Arrowhead Stadium was completed in time for the 1972 season. On August 12, 1972, the Chiefs defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 24–14 in the first preseason game at Arrowhead Stadium.
In the first regular season game at the new and current Arrowhead Stadium in 1972, the Chiefs were defeated by the Miami Dolphins, the team that defeated the Chiefs in "The Longest Game" as the final game in the original Arrowhead Stadium.
On November 5, 1972, 82,094 people (the largest crowd to see a game at Arrowhead Stadium) saw the Chiefs defeat the Oakland Raiders, 27-14, to mark their first regular-season victory in their new home.
In 1973, the stadium was the first in the NFL to include arrows on the yard markers to indicate the nearer goal line. (Initially, they resembled little Indian arrowheads.) This practice would eventually spread to the other NFL stadiums as the 1970s progressed, finally becoming mandatory league-wide in the 1978 season (after being used in Super Bowl XII), and become almost near-universal at lower levels of football.
