The extremely anticipated launch of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ sports activities documentary collection is nearly upon us.
Titled ‘The Kingdom’, this six-part ESPN Originals collection showcases the Chiefs’ pursuit of an unprecedented third straight Tremendous Bowl victory by the bigger-than-life characters who constructed their NFL dynasty.
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This consists of intensive interviews with superstars Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Chris Jones, together with many different key gamers on the roster, in addition to head coach Andy Reid.
Additionally featured all through the collection are members of the Hunt household, whose father, the late Lamar Hunt, based the workforce again in 1959, in addition to the American Soccer League (AFL).
Mahomes – nicknamed the ‘energizer bunny’ by his mother – has spearheaded the Chiefs to 5 Tremendous Bowl appearances in six seasons, successful three championships, and is broadly thought to be one of many best NFL quarterbacks in historical past, regardless of nonetheless very a lot in his prime, having performed simply eight seasons in his profession so far.
The 29-year-old enters the 2025 marketing campaign because the No. 1 ranked quarterback within the NFL, based mostly on ESPN’s annual ballot, regardless of some believing he has misplaced his ‘concern issue’ because of a poor exhibiting in Tremendous Bowl LIX by his personal, very excessive, requirements.
The journey to SubTropolis, Kansas Metropolis
Episode one of many documentary showcases the historical past of one of many league’s most storied franchises and its gamers, as they kick off their pursuit for an unprecedented three-peat.
In a single scene forward of the 2024 marketing campaign, it reveals Reid, who has reworked the Chiefs from being within the pits of despair to serial Tremendous Bowl winners – accelerated by Mahomes being drafted in 2017 – since he got here aboard in 2013, taking a few of his greatest stars underground.
Reid and Mahomes, together with all-time nice tight finish Kelce and outspoken defensive sort out Jones took a go to to the Chiefs’ archive room, which is positioned 150 toes underground in SubTropolis in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri – one of many world’s largest underground enterprise complexes.
The documentary depicts the outer surroundings of the archive room to look precisely like what you’d count on of a cave, albeit with some brick partitions surrounding the sides, and this wasn’t misplaced on the veterans.
“It’s a random entrance,” Mahomes identified. “I’ve been right here for eight years, and by no means even knew this existed.”
“Wow, huh?” Reid responded. “We’re at one with the earth proper right here.”
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“Man, you see how far within the distance that is,” Kelce mentioned. “That is loopy.”
Mahomes went on to element how he felt he was on a film set. “This looks like a James Bond, super-villain [setting] that you just go on in there,” Mahomes mentioned.
Kelce agreed, saying: “Hey you may be on to one thing. I’m with that – just a little Indiana Jones.”
Contained in the small room underground is crammed to the brim with Chiefs memorabilia from all the best way again to once they had been initially generally known as the Dallas Texans.
There are packing containers upon packing containers of images, newspaper clippings, cleats, helmets and footballs which can be all tagged and labelled by period, while an previous Nineteen Seventies/80s tv set is enjoying black and white sport footage from the Chiefs’ early days.
“Not very many groups have a set like this,” Chiefs Historian Bob Moore mentioned. “We’ve obtained a variety of artefacts. It’s excellent for telling the historical past of this franchise.”
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Chiefs proprietor Clark Hunt was available to assist Moore exhibit the artefacts within the room, and offered some extra info and historical past on the workforce his father, Lamar, constructed: “The Chiefs archives is the place we hold the historical past of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs.”
There, Mahomes and co had been proven handwritten playbooks from the Sixties, while they had been additionally proven a framed sport cheque dated from August 12, 1961 to extensive receiver Christopher W. Burford III, who was paid precisely 48 {dollars} and 50 cents. “That is what he obtained paid for enjoying that sport,” Moore advised them.
“Again then that was like one million {dollars}, although, proper?” Kelce requested, earlier than the group broke out into laughter.
In line with DollarTimes, when adjusted for inflation, $48.50 {dollars} in 1961 is the same as $513.65 {dollars} in 2025 – a far cry from the 13-year veteran’s $1 million prediction.
Moore additionally held up a pair of quick shorts, which had been worn by then-head coach Hank Stram in follow, who coached the Dallas Texans/Chiefs for 15 years between 1960-1974, main his workforce to Tremendous Bowl IV victory in 1970.
“I wouldn’t look good in that,” Reid said.
“I’ve seen Coach Reid in a pair of them,” Kelce jokingly mentioned in response.
Moore additionally directed the group’s consideration to {a photograph} of the parade in gentle of the Chiefs’ Tremendous Bowl IV victory over the Minnesota Vikings. “It’s an analogous path to the one you’ve taken over the past couple of years,” he defined.
“I bear in mind my dad saying that [the parade] was his favourite day of his life,” Hunt then advised the group earlier than being proven a handwritten doc which is deemed to be the earliest doc within the historical past of the AFL and of the Chiefs franchise, dated in 1959.
“My dad was actually detail-oriented, and he beloved to place every part down on paper,” Clark continued, earlier than the episode dived into an in depth have a look at how that word was the catalyst for the enduring Chiefs franchise ever present.
How the Chiefs grew to become an NFL juggernaut
With the Hunt household making their fortune rooted from the profitable oil trade, Lamar was dubbed as “the person born of riches however but with a humble, frequent ardour for all sports activities, however particularly professional soccer.”
Rising up, Hunt “beloved seeing a full stadium”, and his son Lamar, defined that his father by no means missed a Cotton Bowl sport as he loved the entire expertise, such because the followers gathering earlier than the sport, the cheerleaders and the marching bands on the sphere.
After graduating from SMU with a level in Geology, Lamar initially adopted in his brothers’ footsteps of searching for oil, however his coronary heart remained in soccer, which he performed at school, in response to his different son, Dan.
Basically, Hunt needed to convey an growth workforce to Dallas, however the NFL wasn’t prepared to do it, in response to Clark.
“There’s no excuse for growth within the Nationwide Soccer League,” mentioned Bert Bell in a clip that surfaced from when he was the NFL commissioner between 1946-1959. “Growth can solely weaken the personnel.”
Together with his negotiations for an growth workforce failing, Hunt persevered, and as a substitute fashioned his personal league (the AFL) together with different house owners who had been coined as ‘The Silly Membership.’
Hunt’s daughter, Sharron, additional defined the that means of that identify, saying: “That was the identify given to the eight house owners of the AFL as a result of folks thought that the enterprise wouldn’t succeed.”
Hunt’s concepts for a workforce in Dallas, and the proposal for the AFL, had been what was jotted down on that American Airways notepad that was proven to Mahomes, Kelce, Jones and Reid within the underground archive room.
The NFL retaliated by bringing within the Dallas Cowboys – giving Dallas an growth workforce in spite of everything – which made Hunt offended, but ‘extra tenacious’ that the AFL would work.
Following the arrival of the Cowboys, Hunt later moved the Texans to Kansas Metropolis and created the Chiefs as we all know them right now. There, he began attracting among the finest abilities from the NFL to hitch the AFL, earlier than the 2 leagues in the end merged.
The legacy Lamar Hunt left on soccer, and its leisure issue remains to be prevalent in 2025, with the issues which have made the NFL the preferred sport in North America.
The likes of Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present and commercials, the gamers having their names on the again of NFL jerseys, the portray of the endzone, how the playoffs are structured, two-point conversions and income sharing all stem from the imaginative and prescient of Hunt, the place he was closely concerned in proposing and integrating all of these issues into the game as we all know it now.
All six episodes of ‘The Kingdom’ will premiere on ESPN+ and Disney+ on August 14, whereas Episodes 1 & 2 will debut on ESPN starting at 9pm ET.