One of the original teams in the AFL and one of the first teams to compete for a Super Bowl title, the Kansas City Chiefs have been one of the model franchises in NFL history. They have never been one of the best teams, winning just two championships since the Super Bowl era began, but they have always been competitive and have housed some of the greatest players the game has ever seen.
Dallas Texans Primary Logo 1960 - 1962
The team was originally from Dallas and went by the name of the Texans and in 1963, the team was looking to move away from Big D to another city in the country. All signs pointed to Atlanta or Miami but the mayor of Kansas City made an offer the organization couldn’t turn down. On May 22, 1963, the town of Kansas City, Missouri had their own professional football team and just four days later, they had their team name. Through a local contest determining the team’s name, the Kansas City Chiefs were born.
The Chiefs’ original logo depicted six mid-western states, consisting of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas as the background, with a Native American Chief in the foreground. The Chief had a big blonde headdress with bright red shoes and a red cloth covering his crotch area. He was carrying a football in his left hand while his right hand was raised with an arrowhead in it.
Kansas City Chiefs Primary Logo 1963 - 1971
This logo did not last a long time, only being used from 1963 - 1972, but it definitely inspired the next generation logo that has stood the test of time for almost 50 years. It is not a flashy logo. It doesn’t have a bunch of colors on it, but it does pay homage to the Native Americans who once roamed the area many years ago.
From the year 1972 until the present day, this has been the Kansas City Chiefs logo. Everyone from Patrick Mahomes, Tony Gonzales, Derrick Thomas, and Len Dawson all wore the iconic KC Arrowhead on the side of their helmet.
As said, this is nothing flashy. It is simply just the abbreviation for Kansas City sitting directly inside of a traditional Native American arrowhead. So if there is nothing crazy special about this logo or nothing that really makes you stop and say, “wow, that is incredible,” then how has it stood the test of time for so long?
To us, it’s all about the recognition and history of this team. The Kansas City Chiefs were started by a man named Lamar Hunt. You may know this name well if you are a fan of an AFC team as this is the name of the trophy awarded to the winner of the AFC each season. Hunt founded the American Football League and created his own team, the Dallas Texans. Just a mere four years after founding his own team and starting the AFL, he found his team a new home in Kansas City and began writing his team’s history there.
Hunt was a visionary for football and the game would not be where it is today with him and he was the one in charge when it came to the creation of the team’s current logo that tracks all the way back to 1972. There is so much history behind this logo that it would almost feel like a crime to change it.
It works perfectly on the side of the player’s helmets on game day. It is a simple color scheme that emits the feeling of passion, trust, energy, and strength. It pays homage to the Native Americans that originally inhabited the land. Lamar Hunt wanted to create a logo for his franchise that would provide an easily recognizable drawback to the city his team plays in and that is exactly what he did. His logo, his creation has stood the test of time for all of these reasons.