In case you were wondering, the distance from 1 Arrowhead Drive in Kansas City, Mo. to Wembley Stadium in London, UK, is just less than 4,500 miles.
Kansas City Chiefs players will travel around 10 hours in the air, cross an entire ocean and enter a foreign country to take on the Detroit Lions—whose stadium, Ford Field, is only 765 miles away from Arrowhead Stadium.
But when the Chiefs land at Heathrow Airport in London, the team will be welcomed by an entirely new kingdom—the United Kingdom.
And the international fans who live and breathe Chiefs football at six hours ahead of Central Time.
International NFL fans have the tough task of following teams whose latest news and information is not plastered on 24-hour sports channels. The time difference means each night game starts around midnight and lasts sometimes three hours into the morning. It takes a deep dedication and a deviation from the normal "football" in Europe.
How does one become a fan from a continent away? Here are a few reasons from the fans of our sister site in London, Arrowheads Abroad:
"I love the Midwest in general and Kansas City in particular. The Chiefs are the soul of KC and worked themselves into my soul."
"Not many people I know understand why I support or understand why I stay up during the middle of the night to watch those Chiefs … They are a special team and have a magical stadium with the best (and noisiest) fans in the NFL."
"I was watching TV late one night, flicking through the sports channels until I came across a documentary series called 'NFL: A Sporting Life.' The documentary was about Marcus Allen and his switch from the Raiders to the Chiefs.**
"From then on I didn't look back…"
"Trent Green was a top-10 quarterback with a huge red zone target who so happens to be my favorite Chief of all time and future Hall of Famer. And to top the offense off... the human juke move called Priest Holmes, behind a line including Willie Roaf and Will Shields.**
"I was hooked."
"Kansas City is the friendliest city in the world, especially to visitors from the UK."
