Kansas City W

American Football League

In 1959, Lamar Hunt began talking with other businessmen about creating a professional football league to rival the National Football League. Hunt's desire to secure a football team rose after watching the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts. After he tried and failed to buy the NFL's Chicago Cardinals and move the team to his hometown of Dallas, Texas, Hunt went to the NFL and asked to create an expansion franchise in Dallas. The NFL turned him down, so Hunt established the American Football League and started his own team, the Dallas Texans, to begin play in 1960.

Hunt hired a little-known assistant coach from the University of Miami football team, Hank Stram, to be the team's head coach after the job offer was declined by Bud Wilkinson and Tom Landry. Don Klosterman, hired as head scout, was widely credited for luring a wealth of talent to the Texans from the NFL, often hiding players and using creative means to land them.

The Texans shared the Cotton Bowl with the NFL's Dallas Cowboys for three seasons. The Texans were to have exclusive access to the stadium until the NFL put an expansion team, the Dallas Cowboys, there. While the team averaged a league-best 24,500 at the Cotton Bowl, the Texans gained less attention due to the AFL's relatively lower profile compared to the NFL's. In the franchise's first two seasons, the team managed records of 8–6 and 6–8.

In their third season, the Texans tallied an 11–3 record and a berth in the team's first American Football League Championship Game, against the Houston Oilers. The game was broadcast nationally on ABC and the Texans defeated the Oilers 20–17 in double overtime. The game lasted 77 minutes and 54 seconds, setting a record for longest game in professional American football. It is still the longest championship game in American Football League history.

It turned out to be the last game the team would play as the Dallas Texans. Despite competing against a Cowboys team that managed only a 9–28–3 record in their first three seasons, Hunt decided that the Dallas–Fort Worth media market couldn't sustain two professional football franchises. He considered moving the Texans to either Atlanta or Miami for the 1963 season. He was ultimately swayed by an offer from Kansas City Mayor Harold Roe Bartle. Bartle promised to triple the franchise's season ticket sales and expand the seating capacity of Municipal Stadium to accommodate the team.

Hunt agreed to move the franchise to Kansas City on May 22, 1963, and on May 26, the team was renamed the Kansas City Chiefs. Hunt and head coach Hank Stram initially planned to retain the Texans name, but a fan contest determined the new "Chiefs" name in honor of Mayor Bartle's nickname that he acquired in his professional role as Scout Executive of the St. Joseph and Kansas City Boy Scout Councils, and founder of the Scouting Society, the Tribe of Mic-O-Say. Despite the historical use of Native American features, it has been acknowledged that the team's naming was not a direct reference to Native Americans but only to Bartle's nickname "Chief". Business Insider journalist Meredith Cash even stated in January 2020 that Bartle "insisted on the team being named after himself" and that "Bartle was known as Chief Lone Bear within Mic-O-Say circles, and eventually the nickname "Chief" caught on among people throughout Kansas City."

The franchise became one of the strongest teams in the now thriving American Football League, with the most playoff appearances for an AFL team (tied with the Oakland Raiders), and the most AFL Championships (three). The team's dominance helped Lamar Hunt become a central figure in negotiations with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to agree on an AFL–NFL merger. The leagues' officials agreed to hold a merged league championship game in January 1967, after the 1966 seasons ended. Hunt insisted on calling the game the "Super Bowl" after seeing his children playing with a popular toy at the time, a Super Ball. While the first few games were designated the "AFL–NFL World Championship Game", the Super Bowl name became its officially licensed title in years to come.