The Kansas City Chiefs have changed quite a lot since they were founded by Lamar Hunt in more than 60 years ago back in 1959.
The businessman wanted to set up a new franchise to be part of the National Football League, but was not successful. As a result, he would set up his own new league to directly compete with the NFL.
The American Football League was founded in 1959, with its first season played the following year. It started off with eight teams across two divisions, East and West, with Hunt owning his own team, the Dallas Texans.
In the East there were the Houston Oilers (now known as the Tennessee Titans), the New York Titans (now the Jets), the Boston Patriots (now New England) and the Buffalo Bills.
In the West, there were Hunt’s Texans (which are now the Chiefs), the Denver Broncos, the Oakland Raiders (now Las Vegas) and the Los Angeles Chargers. Hunt only paid $25,000 to invest in buying his new team, which would have been worth approximately $250,000 in today’s money with inflation.
Within the first four seasons in existence, Hunt’s Texans won one AFL Championship. In 1963, he opted to move the team to Kansas City, Missouri and rename them the Chiefs.
By 1966, plans were announced to merge the AFC and NFL, culminating in the first Super Bowl, which was then known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The Chiefs lost to the Green Bay Packers, who were led by legendary coach Vince Lombardi, in January 1967.
The merger was completed by 1970, and so the future of professional football was changed forever. With this also came the formation of the AFC and NFC divisions, with Hunt’s Chiefs going in the AFC.
Hunt led the team until his death in 2006 at the age of 74. Now the Chiefs are led by his son, Clark, who works as the team’s chairman and CEO. Since the start of their existence saw them formed for $25,000, Forbes estimates the Chiefs now to be worth around $3.7bn.
That puts the Chiefs as the 23rd most valuable team in the NFL. The Dallas Cowboys lead the way with an $8bn valuation, with the New England Patriots in second with a valuation of $6.4bn.
Clark Hunt has helped oversee the most successful period in the Chief’s history. The team has won three Super Bowl’s including two within the last four seasons in 2019 and 2022.
The Hunt family are estimated to be worth $20.5bn, and also have stakes in other sports, as well as football. Clark Hunt is also the owner of Major League Soccer team FC Dallas, having previously owned Columbus Crew until 2013.
