“Welcome home, Dallas Texans!”

Eric Johnson
Mayor of Dallas
.…offering the Kansas City Chiefs the option of returning to their former home at Dallas’ Cotton Bowl, following voters’ defeat of a sales tax to renovate Arrowhead Stadium.

Kansas City Chiefs fans love their football team—but they hate taxes more. Jackson County, Mo., residents voted down a proposed 40-year, three-eighths of a cent sales tax that would have helped fund an $800 million renovation of Arrow Stadium.

Mayor Johnson responded by offering a cheeky, 4-word tweet (as quoted in our Last Word above). His invitation reminded Chiefs fans that their team started out as the Dallas Texans, who played in the Cotton Bowl from 1960 to 1962 before rebranding as the Chiefs and moving to Kansas City.

Welcome home, Dallas Texans! #CottonBowl https://t.co/VFvBqhBHbe

— Mayor Eric L. Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) April 3, 2024

“Dallas was named the top sports city in the United States because we play to win,” Johnson later said in a statement to WFAA. “As I have said previously, our market is big enough, growing enough, and loves football more than enough to support a second NFL team—especially a franchise (and an owner) with deep roots here.”

Those roots refer to Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, who’s also chairman and CEO of FC Dallas. Hunt spoke at the Venture Dallas conference last fall about his family’s nine decades of shaping American sports, including their lasting ties to Big D.

So could the Chiefs really, possibly, maybe end up back here someday as the Dallas Texans? Two problems with that: First, there’s already an NFL team down in Houston named the Texans. And if you think Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wants a rival NFL team plopping down in his own back yard, we have a bridge in Brooklyn we’d like to sell you.

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.