Chiefs’ success with fans at Arrowhead helped enable Super Bowl crowd

There will be about 25,000 fans inside Raymond James Stadium for the Super Bowl on Sunday. One reason the Buccaneers and Chiefs won’t be playing before oceans of empty seats is Kansas City helped prove it was possible to have folks in the stands.

The Chiefs hosted the Texans in the kickoff to the season. From the start, they followed a plan to allow 22% of capacity — approximately 17,000 fans — for each game at Arrowhead Stadium. Fans had to go through temperature checks, sit in small groups and pods, adhere to strict social-distancing measures, and wear face masks whenever they weren’t eating or drinking.

Even when COVID-19 numbers were spiking around the country, the Chiefs never experienced an outbreak traced back to their fans. And as the season wore on, other teams began to follow their blueprint for allowing fans into their own stadiums.

Chiefs president Mark Donovan said they take tremendous pride in that as an organization.

“To be the team on that stage the very first weekend and launch NFL football and do it successfully, and then be the last playoff game before the Super Bowl and close that window and do it successfully, that’s a memory I’ll share with everybody here for a long, long time,” Donovan said.

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There almost certainly will be a moment Sunday when Tyrann Mathieu, the ball-hawking All-Pro safety for the Chiefs, bears down on bruising Buccaneers running back Leonard Fournette and tries to make a tackle.

The fact that it will happen in the Super Bowl? Mathieu called it a “bucket list” moment for both of them.

You see, long before they became NFL stars, or even standouts at LSU, they were making plays for St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. Mathieu was a couple of years ahead of Fournette, so they never really played together, but he always kept his eye on the next football prodigy coming out of the all-boys parochial high school.

“It’s great to see him having some success and be in the situation. It’s great for both of us,” Mathieu said. “Growing up in New Orleans, it teaches you a lot not only as a person but the person who you want to become in the future. The different teachers and coaches we had, they were really hands-on, and that put is in the mindset to dream big and work hard.”