By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
It is hard to put a precise number on the economic impact of hosting the Kansas City Chiefs training camp, but St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce President Patt Lilly says it’s significant.
Lilly says St. Joseph saw that impact build over the 10 years it hosted camp.
“Certainly, I think too we began to see a level of people coming back on a more regular basis,” Lilly tells St. Joseph Post. “They had been here before. They liked the experience and the opportunity the camp gave them here and so those return visitors also became an important part of that.”
Lilly says St. Joseph has been frustrated some years, when the weather didn’t cooperate. Otherwise, the fans it brought to town and the exposure of hosting the camp benefited St. Joseph greatly.
The Chiefs training camp saw record numbers come to Missouri Western State University this past year, with nearly double the number of fans attending.
Total attendance for the three-week training camp last year topped 62,000, far more than the 33,000 who attended in 2018 and the 31,000 who attended in 2017. Missouri Western is bracing for even more fans to come this year, in wake of the Chiefs Super Bowl victory.
Chiefs executives, including owner Clark Hunt, have praised Missouri Western and St. Joseph during their stay here. Coach Andy Reid seems to like the arrangement, which actually bucks the trend among NFL clubs. Many teams have decided against going off-campus for camp.
Missouri Western and the Chiefs agree to a three-year contract to continue hosting the camp, with two option years. Missouri Western has agreed to expand seating capacity to 5,000 and make upgrades to Scanlon Hall, the dorm the Chiefs use during camp.
Lilly says the camp’s impact on St. Joseph grew when the Chiefs hired a new coach.
“The training camp schedule that Andy Reid and his staff put in, where they do the morning practice, as it turns out actually works very good for people who want to come, spend the morning here, usually the temperature is pretty nice and then oftentimes, they take the opportunity to spend a little time in the community in the afternoon before they go back,” Lilly says.
Lilly says in addition to the direct economic benefit of hosting the Chiefs training camp, there is the pride factor of knowing the season which ended in a Super Bowl victory began in St. Joseph, which cannot be quantified.
“You know, for us, it’s been great to be able to enjoy being a fan, but also the pride that comes with seeing the Chiefs have the kind of success that they’ve had. Certainly, those of us in St. Joseph believe that we’ve been part of that success. It started here. We got them on the good path and it ended up with a Super Bowl,” Lilly says. “We may not have played the game, but we were certainly there in mind and spirit.”