There are all sorts of studies about social interaction in various settings and how families and friends react to each other in different settings. And I respect the work that goes into those sorts of studies, don’t get me wrong.
But this is what I experience every week in this town, our KC: When our families and friends come together for a specific sporting event, what I know is what I see, what I hear, what I feel, and, well, other things happening around us in life disappear. What happens can’t be measured or studied scientifically.
I love watching Kansas City sports with my kids, relatives, friends, clients and new relationships. The parties, the get-togethers, the moms, dads, kids, grandmas, grandpas and cousins all suited up for their favorite team, all having fun even before the game begins. Everybody is hoping for a win. It makes going to the event a special day trip where everybody is excited on every level.
Sporting events break down barriers between us. We just react with honest emotions. It’s magic. An amazing play can become an ice-breaker between total strangers as well as family members. How many times have we given high fives all around with people who are just as thrilled about something we all witnessed? It was something historic at times and usually a lifelong memory. Maybe even three in a row.
Sometimes there is a burst of excitement through the whole crowd that you feel in your bones because we all know what we just saw was truly incredible and because our team, or a special player, did it. All of us, together, with the same feeling.
That’s just part of the roller coaster of a sports event with family or others. It’s like a microcosm of life in a way. Good days and bad days are like the ups and downs of a game. Your whole mood can change just like that in one second or one minute. And some of those memories of amazing sports moments stay with us for weeks, months or even a lifetime, cemented in our brains, ready to be recalled anytime—usually with great excitement or, sometimes, with disappointment.
Maybe your love of sports started as a kid, with your parents watching you play basketball or football or soccer or volleyball or tennis or swimming. Or whatever. Maybe they videotaped the game that you’ll watch later as an adult and those great memories will come flooding back.
You’re never going to forget that particular moment in your life that brought such joy and fun to you, your family or friends when you were growing up. And everyone with whom you experienced the moment is recalled all the time.
Those sports memories of you and your mom and dad who cheered you on become embedded inside you and prepare you for other events in your life. You learn early on that life has winning moments and life has losing moments. When you lose, there’s always another opportunity to win. Sports prepare you for that. And wow, how great are those magical memories?
When people go to the Chiefs games or the Royals games or other events, the fun they are having makes it easy to forget the negative stuff, like whether it’s raining or too hot or too cold. You remember that grand slam to end the game or that field goal with seconds left that wows the crowd. Rain? Cold? Snow? Ha! It only adds to the memory. We never ever forget, and we never want to.
It’s those moments that get the adrenaline flowing. And it’s not just you. It’s everyone around you celebrating. It can be 80,000 people all focused on the same fun at the same time. There’s nothing like the roar that goes up from that many people cheering, whistling, stomping their feet, making noise. And then we look at who we are with and smile that smile that never ever goes away. We are all best friends in those moments.
We have been very lucky in Kansas City to see our Royals win the World Series in 2015 and lose it in 2014. And the Chiefs going to five Super Bowls in six seasons, winning back-to-back Super Bowls in 2023 and 2024 and maybe a third in 2025. These are big-time memorable events. Sure, some call the whole pro sports thing too pricey—tickets are too much, parking is too much, concessions are too much. But you don’t have to go to the big pro games to have great family memories. Even if you’re at home and you’re having a Super Bowl party or a World Series party, you experience the excitement and the rush when your team suddenly scores as time runs out. You get pumped up. Everybody gets pumped up. And we never forget who we were with at that occasion.
Kansas City has always been a big sports city for families. And lately, it’s gotten even bigger. Along with the Chiefs and Royals, there’s the women’s soccer team, the Kansas City Current; our men’s soccer team, Sporting Kansas City; our hockey team, the Kansas City Mavericks; and our minor league baseball team, the Kansas City Monarchs.
We should never lose sight of what those sporting events do by creating a lifetime of memories. As you go on in life, the things that were not that important you forget about. But these sporting event memories are the things you never forget and help build the family-and-friends unit.
The cool thing is there are many more memories to come. How magical is that! And how can we put a price on those priceless memories and other magic memories we never, ever, ever forget?
Thank you to our city. Our Kansas City. Thanks. Enjoy the ride.
