The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. They are currently members of the Western Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL).

Originally called the Dallas Texans, the club was founded by Lamar Hunt in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League. The team moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs in 1963 after then-Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle guaranteed the team they would have increased ticket sales. The Chiefs then joined the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL Merger.

The Chiefs hold the distinction of being the second AFL team (after the New York Jets) to defeat an NFL club in an AFL-NFL World Championship Game when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.

AFL
In 1959 Lamar Hunt, son of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, began discussions with other businessmen to establish an American football organization that would rival the National Football League. The organization would later be known as the American Football League, and Hunt established a team of his own for the league after being denied ownership of an NFL franchise. The Dallas Texans, as they were known then, shared the Cotton Bowl with the NFL's cross-town competition, the Dallas Cowboys.

After three seasons — including an AFL championship in 1962 — it was apparent that Dallas couldn't support two teams. Hunt investigated opportunities to move his team to several cities for the 1963 season, wanting to find a city to which he could commute easily from Dallas. He eventually turned to Kansas City, where Mayor H. Roe Bartle persuaded him to move to the Midwest.

Hunt, with a roster replete with players who had played college football in Texas, wanted to maintain a lineage to the team’s roots and wanted to call the club the "Kansas City Texans". "The Lakers stayed the Lakers when they moved from Minnesota to California", he reasoned. "But Jack Steadman convinced me that wasn’t too smart. It wouldn’t sell." The team was renamed the Kansas City Chiefs—one of the most popular suggestions Hunt received in a name-the-team contest, along with "Kansas City Mules" — and began playing in Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium in 1963.

The name "Chiefs" is derived from Mayor Bartle, who 35 years prior, founded the Native American-based honor society known as The Tribe of Mic-O-Say within the Boy Scouts of America organization, which earned him the nickname, "The Chief."

The Texans/Chiefs franchise was the flagship team of the American Football League, with the most playoff appearances as an AFL team, six (tied with Oakland), the most American Football League Championships (3), and the most Super Bowl appearances, playing in the first Super Bowl, and in the last to be played between League champions. The Texans won the classic 1962 double-overtime AFL championship game against the Houston Oilers, 20-17, at the time the longest, and still one of the best professional football championship games ever played. The Chiefs dropped the first Super Bowl to the Packers, then pulverized the Vikings 23-7 in the final "true" AFL-NFL World Championship game after the AFL's last season in 1969. They had just one coach throughout their AFL history, Hall-of-Famer Hank Stram.

The Chiefs' first Kansas City home was at Municipal Stadium, which opened in 1923 and had 49,002 seats. In 1972, the Chiefs moved into the new Arrowhead Stadium. Municipal Stadium was demolished in 1976 and is now a community garden.

Arrowhead Stadium is half of the Truman Sports Complex, along with Kauffman Stadium (formerly Royals Stadium). While many applaud the Kansas City decision makers for this decision, the move was not quite by design. When it became readily apparent the old Municipal Stadium was not adequate for the Kansas City Chiefs, the decision was made to build a multi-use stadium for the Chiefs and Charlie Finley's Kansas City A's. Finley proved to be too difficult to work with, demanding a "baseball stadium that could also be used for football" or a baseball only stadium, instead of the other way around.

Since moving to Kansas City in 1963, the team logo has been a white arrowhead bearing the initials "K.C."

The Kansas City Chiefs' uniform design has essentially remained the same throughout the club's entire history. It consists of a red helmet, and either red or white jerseys with the opposite color numbers and names trimmed in yellow. White pants were used with both jerseys until 1969, when red pants were used with the white jerseys.

Even though many NFL teams in recent years have worn their dark jerseys with their dark pants, the Kansas City Chiefs have to yet to unveil an all-red combination. The Kansas City Chiefs also have yet to wear an alternate jersey in a game.

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