KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- I'm not sure any of us will be around when the NFL awards a Super Bowl to Kansas City, unless that rolling roof that has been proposed more than once for the Truman Sports Complex finally gets built. But the Kansas City Chiefs remain alive, technically speaking, to land a Super Bowl for Arrowhead Stadium.
I caught up with Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt during the draft and asked him to clarify the NFL's rule regarding the Super Bowl and specifically the requirement that a team relinquish a home game for the NFL's London series in order to be considered a potential host for a Super Bowl.
The Chiefs gave up a home game on their 2015 schedule. In a game that would have been played at Arrowhead, the Chiefs will face the Detroit Lions on Nov. 1 at Wembley Stadium in London.
"The way the rule works is if you want to bid for a Super Bowl, you have to be willing to give up a home game to play in London if you're the winner of the Super Bowl bid," Hunt said. "And that was voted on in the fall, coincidentally, at the time we made the decision to play a game next year in London. And I've mentioned to the league that when we get around to bidding on a Super Bowl, we certainly will include in the bid the fact that we have given up a game already.”
No ambiguity there. But, to be clear, relinquishing a home game doesn't mean Kansas City and the Chiefs will get a Super Bowl. It means they've cleared that one particular hurdle.
Many more remain, and those are the bigger obstacles. Arrowhead would be in a long line of potential outdoor, cold-weather venues for a Super Bowl, a line that would include cities with far more hotel stock and financial muscle.
In other words, it's going to be a long time before a Super Bowl is played in Kansas City, if it ever happens.