By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Western State University President Elizabeth Kennedy says Chiefs Training Camp is going well on the St. Joseph campus.
“We have had record crowds,” Kennedy tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “In fact, the last couple of camp (days), I understand, the Chiefs actually sold out. So, we’re talking on the Sunday Family Fun Day, we had 7,000 tickets that were secured by a guest that came with their families.”
Training camp is back to normal after being canceled two years ago and being held under coronavirus restrictions last year.
Kennedy says there is a reason the Chiefs cap attendance at 7,000. Kennedy says that, to the Chiefs, it’s all about the fans.
“So, they don’t want a crowd so big that nobody’s going to get an autograph, nobody’s going to have that unique experience, because every fan that comes to camp then walks away and has a story and they want, the Chiefs want, that story to be the best story about their experience and so do we at Missouri Western.”
Kennedy says the experience this year is in stark contrast to the last two years.
“I think everyone was kind of holding their breath to say what is this year going to look like?” Kennedy says. “Now that we kind of have COVID at least tampered down a bit, it’s been fabulous. It really has been fun.”
Missouri Western wants to continue to be the home of Chiefs Training Camp. This is the final guaranteed year of the five-year contract Missouri Western signed with the Chiefs. There are two optional years in the contract. Kennedy says the university will officially begin negotiations with the Chiefs about exercising those two optional years in March.
“Which seems like a long way off,” Kennedy says. “But we’ve already been working behind the scenes to kind of talk about other partners in our community, because it can’t just be Missouri Western making sure that the Chiefs understand how important their coming to St. Joseph is.”
Being the home of the Chiefs Training Camp could open other opportunities for Missouri Western, such as being host to some world-class soccer.
Kennedy says Missouri Western joined with Kansas City’s bid to host some of the World Cup games in 2026.
“They’ll be looking for regional training sites and when Kansas City put in their packet to FIFA about offering this, we also were part of that application as being willing to host a country - which is kind of interesting – but a country for a practice area.”
Kansas City is a host site when the World Cup comes to the United States in 2026.