As more NFL teams plan to move into enclosed stadiums with translucent roofs, some of the sport’s most iconic gameday atmospheres could be on the way out.
The 2025 season has certainly been a turbulent one for the Kansas City Chiefs, who entered the season with Super Bowl hopes once again after failing to complete the league’s first-ever three-peat in 2024.
The past few weeks have brought the bulk of that turbulence, which included a season-ending ACL injury for franchise quarterback Patrick Mahomes and an elimination from playoff contention, the first time the Chiefs will miss out on the postseason since 2014.
Topping all of those concerns, however, is the news that the Chiefs will be moving across the Missouri River, with plans to move into a new enclosed stadium in Kansas City, Kansas by the 2031 season.
While the news was met with a jubilant reaction from the legion of Chiefs fans who live in eastern Kansas, many of the team’s fans in Missouri expressed disappointment and sadness at the news, with the state losing its third NFL franchise (St. Louis Cardinals move to Phoenix in 1988, St. Louis Rams move to Los Angeles in 2016).
Yet beyond the disappointment of the Chiefs simply moving across state lines, many fans also lament the impending loss of Arrowhead Stadium, which has served as the franchise’s home field since its opening in 1972.
On top of being the league’s third-oldest stadium (and second-longest tenured home stadium), Arrowhead has long held a reputation as one of the most intimidating atmospheres in the league, with many fans wondering what the future of tailgating will look like in a new stadium.
As Chiefs fans wonder what the team and experience will look like after moving from Missouri to Kansas to an enclosed stadium, they are far from alone.
Of the seven NFL stadiums currently proposed, planned or under construction, only one will be an open-air stadium, with the new Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York debuting next year as the new home of the Buffalo Bills.
The leaguewide drive for enclosed stadiums revolves around the pursuit of hosting a Super Bowl, an event that has almost always been limited to warm-weather cities or domed stadiums in the past, with the exception of Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in the New York City area.
As for the Bills, team officials opted to go for another open-air stadium, citing Buffalo’s lack of infrastructure to host a Super Bowl anyways along with the city’s and team’s reputation of playing in a cold, snowy environment that has long made Buffalo one of the league’s prized gameday atmospheres.
The Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears, Tennessee Titans and Washington Commanders are all also at least in the planning stages for a new translucent-roofed stadium, with the Denver Broncos having plans to build a retractable roof stadium.
Shall all the plans come to fruition, the NFL would go from having three stadiums with translucent roofs to having eight, turning what is now a cool, innovative feature into a standard part of the league’s future.
To be clear, I’m not opposed to stadiums with translucent roofs – it’s a logical technological progression of building enclosed stadiums, and the three currently in use in the NFL (SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles, U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis and Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas) all look to be incredible, up-to-date facilities that make sense as home stadiums for their tenants.
From Kevin Warren of the Bears to the Adams Family of the Titans, the goal of an enclosed stadium is to have the capability to host a Super Bowl and other year-round events. While the Bears and Titans both call relatively unremarkable stadiums home currently, they join the chorus of the teams that are throwing in the towel on a new era of compelling, open-air stadiums.
The urgency to host a Super Bowl and other year-round events in an enclosed stadium ignores a few factors that will certainly not change.
Stadium concert tours, the primary source of event revenue outside of sporting events for football and baseball stadiums alike, almost always take place during the summer anyways, with the outdoor setting of the concert usually contributing to the experience.
Furthermore, several teams seem to be wagering generations of their franchise’s future on the opportunity to maybe host a Super Bowl.
While the three Midwest stadiums with roofs have all hosted a Super Bowl (U.S. Bank Stadium, Ford Field in Detroit and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis), it has been just that so far – a single Super Bowl.
Although the venues are more than capable of hosting the big event itself, it’s clear that the NFL prefers to host Super Bowl festivities in a warm-weather city, regardless of if the stadium is located indoors or not. While Ford Field and Lucas Oil Stadium opened in 2002 and 2008 respectively, they’ve each just hosted one Super Bowl.
Since Detroit hosted the Super Bowl in February 2006, the following venues have hosted multiple Super Bowls:
- Hard Rock Stadium – Miami Gardens, Florida (2007, 2010, 2020)
- State Farm Stadium – Glendale, Arizona (2008, 2015, 2023)
- Raymond James Stadium – Tampa, Florida (2009, 2021)
- Caesars Superdome – New Orleans, Louisiana (2013, 2025)
- Levi’s Stadium – Santa Clara, California (2016, 2026)
Additionally, both SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta are in line to receive a second Super Bowl in 2027 and 2028, respectively, keeping the Midwestern stadiums off the table for a few more years.
While the Bears, Commanders, Titans, Browns, Broncos and Chiefs all look to move into stadiums that are Super Bowl and year-round event ready, the new stadium doesn’t change the fact that the cities are still widely seen as undesirable places to be at in early February – something the NFL clearly considers and caters to.
There may be a single Super Bowl and perhaps a handful of stadium concerts to gain from these moves, but there’s much more to lose – electric, cold-weather environments that have made the NFL compelling television for as long as it has been on the air.
While Buffalo is remaining outdoors and the Packers certainly won’t be departing Lambeau Field anytime soon, it’s not hard to envision a league that is almost entirely comprised of enclosed stadiums within the next several decades – leaving fans with a relatively indistinguishable experience.
That’s not to say that games won’t be fun or worth it to attend, but it is worth noting that an NFL game may become more of a singular experience in the way that many fans view NBA and NHL games to be right now, with relatively minute differences from venue-to-venue once you’re at your seat.
What does remain clear is that these plans are not at all about what’s best for the teams’ fans, but rather how a team’s ownership can maximize profit and squeeze the most out of the building they make their money from. The location of these stadiums is only dependent on what local or state government is willing to fork over money from taxpaying citizens, many of whom could never afford to attend an exorbitantly priced NFL game.
If that means throwing away decades of tradition and revered fan experiences in hopes of maybe hosting a Super Bowl one day, then so be it.
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