Chiefs fans are losing their patience - Ingles

It’s usually around this time of year that longtime Chiefs season-ticket holder Scott Black begins to get excited about the coming season.

Thanks to the NFL’s ongoing labor dispute and owner-imposed lockout, this is anything but a usual year.

Without a collective-bargaining agreement between the players and owners or a court order forcing the lockout to be lifted, the 2011 season is in jeopardy. The next chapter in the saga will be written on Friday at an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing in St. Louis.

Until a resolution is reached, first-round draft pick Jonathan Baldwin and the rest of the new Chiefs are not permitted at team facilities. A few Chiefs players are conducting practices on their own, but they’ve expressed a desire to work in secrecy. Nearly all Chiefs news these days is lockout- and labor-related.

For Black and many other Chiefs fans, the sense right now is not one of anticipation, but one of dread and doom.

“I’m at the point where I’ve just quit looking for Chiefs news because I’m just so disgusted with the entire situation,” Black said. “I’m not reading Chiefs news, I’m not watching the NFL Network.

“I’m at the point where I’m beyond frustrated. I realize (the labor dispute) is all a part of business, and I certainly empathize with both sides in wanting to get a fair deal. But in the end, they’re still fighting over a $9 billion or $10 billion industry, and I’m just disappointed and disillusioned by the whole thing.”

Black is just the sort of fan NFL commissioner Roger Goodell referenced last week at the conclusion of the league meetings in Indianapolis. Goodell indicated a sense that the lockout is wearing on NFL fans and warned of the economic trouble ahead for teams if things aren’t resolved shortly.

“I think it has clearly had an impact on our fans already,” Goodell said. “You see that in our various metrics that we have, whether they are (TV) ratings or traffic on NFL.com. … And that is a reflection of the uncertainty and the frustration of our fans.

“Our ratings were down at the draft, as an example, by roughly 4 million people. That’s a pretty significant decrease, about a 10-percent decrease, as I recall.”

Closer to home, the Chiefs may not be feeling the financial effects of the lockout as much as other teams. Chairman Clark Hunt said recently that the Chiefs were leading the league in new ticket sales by a significant margin. Of course, they also had a lot more inventory available than many teams to start with thanks to 76,416-seat Arrowhead Stadium.

“The changes we made to the business operation last year really paid dividends,” president Mark Donovan said. “We really tried to focus on the fan experience and making sure every single opportunity to have an interaction with our fans were positive ones.

“Obviously, winning the division and going 10-6 and having the excitement that went along with it, that built great momentum for us. That helped us with ticket sales. But it’s hard to measure how much more we could have grown or how much we were impacted by all this.”

That’s why the Chiefs say they are taking this situation so seriously. Hunt said that he hasn’t noticed an increase in negative comments from fans yet, but he expects it soon if the season remains in peril.

“As we get into summer, people will start thinking about football and about training camp,” Hunt said. “During the spring, we have (offseason practices), and fans focus on that to some degree, but it’s not a focal point. But football in the fall is very much a part of the fabric of society, and I think our fans will become very concerned.”

Until then, fans are experiencing increasing angst about the Chiefs and the fate of their season. It’s impossible to gauge in terms of numbers, but it’s also impossible to miss.

“I don’t feel connected at all,” said Gary Krings, who said season tickets have been in his family since the Chiefs arrived in Kansas City in 1963. “I feel I have no control over this and I’m totally at the mercy of the two sides. To be honest with you, I don’t care that much about the issues between them. It’s just a helpless feeling.”

Other fans tell a similar story, one that’s increasingly worrisome to the Chiefs and the rest of the NFL.

“Usually this time of year, I’m reading the newspaper every day,” said Jeff Yergovich, another longtime ticket holder. “I’m following what moves they make and how they do it, who’s new and who’s not. This year it’s all been a ‘blah’ situation for me. I figure if they don’t care about me, why should I care about them?

“They can’t even tell me whether there’s going to be a season this year. Why do I want to go out and buy a jersey? And do I really want to spend the money that ends up going back to the Chiefs or the NFL? I don’t know. It’s like I’m in a real holding pattern trying to figure out what to do.”

Krings said: “It’s totally different for me this year. I just can’t get into it at all. Somebody asked me the other day what I thought about their draft. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. It hasn’t even been anything I thought about. And that’s a frustrating feeling.”

Black, who lives in the Dallas area, travels to Kansas City for some Chiefs home games and distributes the rest of his tickets to friends and family. He had particular plans for the coming season that he may not realize.

“My youngest son has never been to Arrowhead Stadium, and he’s 7 years old,” Black said. “As a reward, I told him that he and I would fly to Kansas City and go to a Chiefs game, his first one. I had to tell him the other day we might have to come up with a plan B because I’m really worried there won’t be football this fall. Trying to explain to a 7-year-old why there won’t be football is extremely difficult.

“I’ve decided if we end up missing games. I probably won’t renew my tickets.”

Hunt hasn’t given up hope that an agreement can be reached, and soon. He acknowledged that with summer just around the corner, time is “very short.”

“I’m hopeful the players will start to feel the time pressure that we really all have,” he said. “None of us want to miss any football. That’s certainly our goal from an ownership standpoint, and I know the players want to play.”

Yergovich can’t see himself giving up on the Chiefs, but the frustration is overwhelming.

“I’ve always been a Chiefs fan, I’ve been around way too long to change,” he said. “But it’s frustrating that they’re sitting there arguing about things they shouldn’t be arguing about.”

Hunt’s message to fans like Black, Yergovich and Krings? Don’t give up on the Chiefs yet.

“If we can get to the bargaining table,” Hunt said, “I know that we’ll be able to find a deal that’s good for both parties and can get the Chiefs back on the field come this September.” This article was written by Adam Teicher and appeared in The Kansas City Star.