KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Seems there’s a fine line between being a visionary and a daydreamer. And in the early years of the American Football League, well, it was hard to say how history would categorize the founding members.

The bleak financials two years in compelled Oakland owner Wayne Valley to employ some gallow’s humor.

“How can anyone be proud to have lost a million dollars?” he said in 1962, per the Chiefs’ archives. “I propose that we rename this league ‘The Foolish Club,’ because that’s what we are.”

The nickname stuck.

In part because of the spirit the levity suggested. And in part because it was frequently mentioned and commemorated by Hunt — who for Christmas 1964 sent out a montage of AFL photos he’d taken embellished with “The Foolish Club” in his handwriting.

All these decades later, Hunt’s signature still reverberates.

Not only for the upstart league that ultimately revolutionized the NFL, but for infinite other reasons — including how the Chiefs see it as their responsibility to maximize this time in pursuit of becoming the “World’s Team.”

Which helps explain how and why the Chiefs in February introduced “Foolish Club Studios,” an announcement that in real time was obscured by their attempt later that week to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls.

‘Honoring my dad’s legacy’

The enterprise dedicated to producing and directing stories that transcend football and sport already has made an impact with a key supporting role in the recently released documentary “The Kingdom” — which also provides a fresh rendition of Hunt’s vital place in American sports history.

The six-part series chronicling the franchise’s influential history and its quest for the unprecedented was produced by Words + Pictures (founded by Kansas Citian Connor Schell) in association with ESPN, Skydance Sports, NFL Films, 2PM Productions … and Foolish Club Studios.

ESPN and the Chiefs will co-host a red carpet premiere on Sunday at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, an event that effectively amplifies Hunt’s enduring resonance as embodied in the studio name.

Indeed, there was considerable intentionality behind that choice name, which Clark Hunt says makes him smile every time he says it.

“Because it immediately makes me think about my dad and that group of pioneers who took on the National Football League,” Hunt, the chairman and CEO of the Chiefs, said in an interview with The Kansas City Star.

Beyond that, though, invoking that name reflects the Chiefs’ abiding but reinvigorated notion to demonstrate how Lamar Hunt still inspires what they do to this day — nearly 20 years since his death in 2006.

One of the pillars of their mission statement, Clark Hunt reminded, is to “honor tradition.”

“And that always starts with honoring my dad’s legacy,” he said.

In this case, as Chiefs president Mark Donovan put it in a February news release, through a penchant for “storytelling around sports (that) captivated” him.

The Chiefs already had been deeply engaged in that through their in-house production company, 65 Toss Power Trap Productions — a name that’s a bow to a mic’d up Hank Stram in Super Bowl IV.

Long before others really identified sports as an entertainment business, Lamar Hunt understood that was their very essence.

And, with that, the fundamental need to engage fans in every way.

That’s only become more true with rising interest and technology.

“In professional sports in general, fans hunger to see how the sausage is made, if you will,” said Hunt, who said “The Kingdom” has been translated into about 20 languages. “And to have a chance to see what goes on during the week, not just on Sundays, but also … to learn more about the personalities that play such a pivotal part in the professional football team’s journey.”

But that aspect is just part of a broader and deeper point about Lamar Hunt’s ongoing presence among us.

Including in a way few people might realize while the Chiefs have played for the Lamar Hunt Trophy in the AFC championship game seven straight times and in that span won three Super Bowls — a name he’s credited with giving the game with a prompt from the old Wham-O Super Ball his wife, Norma, had given the kids for Christmas 1965.

‘Welcome to the National Football League’

When Andy Reid in 1999 attended his first NFL meeting as coach and general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles, he once told me, he was feeling out of place when a stranger tapped him on the shoulder.

“He says, ‘Welcome to the National Football League. I‘ve heard good things about you. I think you’re going to be good for this league,’” Reid recalled in 2021.

Next thing you know, they’re talking about family and geology; Hunt was a geologist, and so is Reid’s brother, Reggie.

Then they engaged frequently with each other at annual meetings or events like the 101 Awards (another Hunt idea) in Kansas City every year.

The relationship was such, Reid said then, that he felt he might like to work for Hunt or the Chiefs if circumstances ever led to that prospect.

Clark Hunt said he has spoken several times about that over the years with Reid, now the fourth-winningest coach in NFL history

“I think it’s a really special comment about my dad and just the person that he was,” Hunt said. “I always love hearing Lamar Hunt stories, and they’re always very similar to Andy’s story …

“Somebody ran into my dad, typically in an airport or on an airplane, and my dad just struck up a conversation with them, and the person felt like my dad really cared about them. And I think Andy had that same experience the first time that he met my dad.

“And maybe in a small way, that helped lay the groundwork for Andy coming to Kansas City.”

How Lamar Hunt changed Kansas City

To be sure, Lamar Hunt’s broader legacy is too sprawling to approximate in this space.

But it includes transformative roles in American tennis and, most notably for us just now, soccer.

After all, he was crucial to the founding of the MLS and instrumental in bringing the World Cup to the United States in 1994.

But even that comes back to how he still looms over Kansas City.

Even posthumously, his life by extension was a factor in Kansas City becoming a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

For that matter, imagine if he hadn’t decided to move his Dallas Texans here after they won the 1962 AFL championship but were struggling financially in competition with the Dallas Cowboys.

While Kansas City already was “major league” by then, with Major League Baseball’s Athletics here before they moved and the Royals were born, perception remained otherwise.

The way Len Dawson heard it, for instance, livestock were roaming the streets. And who knew there was a Kansas City, Missouri, and a Kansas City, Kansas — or which one the team was going to play in?

Which brings us to another element of Hunt’s legacy:

The matter of whether the Chiefs will remain at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, which he considered his favorite place and a site that reflects his will and imagination.

Or whether they’ll move to Kansas when the current lease at the Truman Sports Complex expires after the 2030 season.

“What a special place Arrowhead is for our family and for the fan base. And, clearly, it’s very much tied to my dad’s legacy,” Clark Hunt said. “But he was also always focused on the fan experience. And one of the filters that we’ll use to make the decision when we get there is what is going to create the best experience for future generations of Chiefs fans.

“And I really think that’s how my dad would approach the decision, as well.”

And for a franchise determined to perpetuate itself in his image, with his four children making the decision, interpreting what the founder would have done may well be like having another voice in the room.

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