Who Dey? What Chiefs fans should know about the Bengals’ chant ahead of Sunday’s game

The Kansas City Chiefs are preparing to take on the Cincinnati Bengals for the AFC Championship on Sunday.

The game marks the fifth-straight championship game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, a record matched by the then-Oakland Raiders in the 1970s and surpassed by the Tom Brady-led New England Patriots in the mid-2000s.

As the team gameplans for a rematch from last year’s AFC Championship game, some Chiefs fans may remember happy Bengals fans were leaving the stadium. Traveling fans were heard chanting after Cincinnati defeated Kansas City 27-24 in overtime.

The chorus of:

“Who Dey? Who Dey? Who Dey think they gonna beat dem Bengals?”

“Who Dey? Who Dey? Who Dey think they gonna beat dem Bengals?”

“Nobody!” rang through the stadium and bars in Kansas City, but where does the chant come from, and what does it even mean?

Here’s what you need to know about the history of “Who Dey.”

WHEN DID IT START?

According to a past Sporting News interview with then-Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson, the iconic chant’s origins date back to the 1981 season. He said it started when the team finished 12-4 in the regular season and finished 1st overall in the AFC, meaning they had the first-round bye.

“We were the No. 1 seed, and so we had a bye week and had both playoff games at home,” Anderson told Sporting News. “It was the old Riverfront Stadium, and that’s when the ‘Who Dey?’ chant started. That’s when people started wearing the orange-and-black wigs and painting their faces. The banners showed up at the stadium. It was electrifying.”

It’s chanted by the fans during the chorus and at the end of Cincinnati’s touchdown song, “The Bengals Growl.”

The chant went away for a while, but it made a comeback during the 1988 season, when the Bengals also finished 12-4.

WHAT’S THE ORIGIN?

One of the most popular stories about the origin of “Who Dey?” involves a Cincinnati beer from the Hudepohl Brewing Company. Sporting News reported that vendors would yell outside the old Bengals’ stadium “Hudy” to sell beers, which sounds very similar to what you hear now in “Who Dey?”

The rest of the chant may have come from a television commercial for Red Frazier Ford of Cincinnati, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The dealership was going out of business at the time, but the commercial featured a memorable tune: “Who’s going to give you a better deal than Red Frazier … nobody!”

CityBeat in Cincinnati reports that WEBN-FM, a local radio station in the city, made the chant popular when program director Denton Marr grabbed some employees and recorded a version of it.

WAS IT STOLEN?

Football fans know of “Who Dey?” just like they know of “Who Dat?” which comes from the New Orleans Saints. Their full chant is as follows:

“Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?”

The Saints’ chant originated in the 19th century and was made popular by Black entertainers in the region. The Advocate in Baton Rouge posted an editorial in 2022 suggesting the Bengals took the chant from the Saints.

“’Who dey, who dey, who dey think gonna beat dem Bengals?’ sounds like a cheap knock-off of our more clever — and grammatically correct — Who Dat cheer,” the editorial said.

The Cincinnati Enquirer and CityBeat dispute The Advocate’s claim in their reporting.

While fans may never know the true origins, Kansas City should be ready to hear the chant as Bengals fans invade the city this week in preparation for the Chiefs taking on another AFC Championship.

The Chiefs kickoff against the Bengals at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday. The winner advances to the Super Bowl on Feb. 12.