The Chiefs are now one win against the Philadelphia Eagles away from their fourth title in the past six years. Already, they’re one of the greatest dynasties the sport has ever seen. But what the past several years has shown is that the team isn’t content merely amassing a collection of diamond-studded rings and throwing parades. Instead, the Chiefs are using their run as a springboard for something they hope lasts far beyond Patrick Mahomes.

The Cowboys are America’s team. The Chiefs want to be the world’s team.

“It’s great to put that North star out there at a time when they’re having such success,” says Peter O’Reilly, the NFL Executive Vice President who oversees the league’s international push. “They’ve recognized that they have this moment that allows them to really grow their global fan base.”

Since the NFL began taking regular season games abroad in 2007, with a matchup between the Giants and Dolphins at London’s Wembley Stadium, the league has given all 32 teams the chance to go on the road outside the U.S. The Jacksonville Jaguars, whose owner has long-term ties to London, have played more than twice as many as any other team with 13. They were in England so much that fans began to wonder if a permanent move across the pond was in the works.

A Chiefs helmet on display in Frankfurt. On the e-commerce giant Fanatics, the Chiefs are the No. 3-selling team in the U.S., but top in Germany. Photo: Michael Probst/Associated Press

But no one has committed harder to sell itself to Europe than this relatively small-market team from the middle of America. And nothing has been off limits. Kansas City’s efforts in Germany, for instance, have included ChampionsHaus (a pop-up inside Frankfurt’s Museum of Modern Electronic Music), The ChampionShip (a boat docked in Frankfurt for fans to watch the game), and The Champions Hausboot (self-explanatory).

“We’re on a platform that we have never been on before, and we’re on that platform at a time when the entire world is converging,” says Mark Donovan, the Chiefs’ president. “We’re trying to take full advantage of that and create generations of fans now across the coast.”

The numbers suggest the mission is working. The Chiefs, who became the first team to win games in four countries, lead the NFL in followers and engagement in both Germany and Mexico, two of the league’s biggest international markets. On the e-commerce giant Fanatics, the Chiefs are the No. 3-selling team in the U.S., but top in Germany. And across Europe, tight end Travis Kelce’s No. 87 is their highest-selling jersey.

While it isn’t unusual for international fans to latch on to whichever team is hot when they first get into the game (Britain, for instance, has a legion of longstanding 49ers fans owing to the league’s arrival on U.K. TV screens in 1982), no franchise seems to have timed their move better than Kansas City. The Chiefs’ bid for a dynasty just happened to coincide with the NFL’s decision to ramp up its expansion.

Until a couple of years ago, the only games that required players to pack their passports had been in the U.K. and Mexico. But over the past two seasons, the list of venues has stretched to two cities in Germany and São Paulo, Brazil, with Berlin, Madrid and Melbourne due up in 2025 and 2026.

In theory, the NFL would like every team to be as proactive as the Chiefs. When the league launched the Global Markets Program in 2022, it effectively carved up the world, giving teams the chance to call dibs on marketing rights in different territories. Some made more sense than others. The New Orleans Saints, for example, took France, a country that already knew the definition of fleur-de-lis. Five different teams, meanwhile, claimed a share of neutral Switzerland.

The Chiefs, who became the first team to win games in four countries, lead the NFL in followers and engagement in both Germany and Mexico. Photo: nathan ray seebeck/Reuters

But of all the clubs scrambling to draw attention to themselves abroad, the Chiefs boast a collection of exports that none of the others can match: They have Mahomes, a mustachioed coach named Andy Reid and a star tight end in Kelce who happens to be dating one of the planet’s most recognizable pop stars. Three championship rings in five years help, too.

That’s why the Chiefs made their pitch to play on Christmas every year—though it’s unclear whether the NFL’s other franchises will agree to the proposal. But their push is only just beginning. After producing a Hallmark holiday movie this season, the Chiefs have now set up their own production company in another effort to broaden their global footprint.

It’s called “Foolish Club Studios,” a nod to the former AFL owners who were once crazy enough to take on the NFL. The idea was just about as crazy as a team from Missouri taking on the world.

“We know that you become a true, avid fan when you have a favorite team,” O’Reilly says. “You can watch the Super Bowl and like the NFL. But when you become a Chiefs fan, then you’re week-to-week, living and dying with your favorite team.”