This weekend, half of the audience watching the Super Bowl will be women. As the NFL has tried to figure out how to better engage and serve those female fans, one team has had a head start—the Kansas City Chiefs.
A few weeks ago, Kansas City Chiefs CMO Lara Krug came by Fortune‘s offices on a trip to New York. While the Chiefs didn’t make the Super Bowl this year, the rest of the league is still watching the team for tips on how to tap into the female fan base.
“The reality is that there were actually just as many female fans pre-Taylor Swift as there were perhaps after,” Krug says of her team’s most famous fan. “I just don’t think they were as prioritized in terms of how brands and clubs and leagues were thinking about their product offerings to them.”
So what’s different now? Merch collaborations are the “lowest lift” way to engage female fans. Partnerships with Abercrombie, Zara, and other brands are reaching her where she’s already shopping—rather than requiring her to buy gear from the team store.
The Chiefs have been focused on the “millennial mom” who might be bringing her kids to games. “Bringing your kids for a six-hour game or four-hour game—that’s a long commitment,” Krug explains. Nursing rooms in stadiums, tailgate suites for rental (rather than just a parking lot) can all make that a more appealing prospect for her (and make it feel like she’s getting her money’s worth after shelling out for tickets for the whole family).
In 2024, the Chiefs partnered with Hallmark on a Christmas movie, Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story. At the time, the move raised some eyebrows—but now it’s spurred an entire franchise. (If you’re a fan of Hallmark Christmas movies, it’s really a fun one!)
Krug started with the Chiefs in 2021. When she looks around the stadium now, she see signs the fan base is evolving—like women in their 30s who are season ticket holders together. “This isn’t their parents gave them tickets or they go with their boyfriends. This is her and her best friend decided that that’s what they wanted to use their money on—they go to every single home game together,” Krug says.
When the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New England Patriots on Sunday, I’ll be looking for those fans in the crowd.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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