He’s spreading Chiefs worldwide with Das Kingdom podcast and his Mahomes book in German

Not long after German exchange student Daniel Jensen arrived in Wichita for the 2001 school year at Andover Central High, schoolmates asked the tall and sturdy teen if he could play football.

“Like every German boy,” as he put it, he was most invested in soccer, better known as football in most of the world.

But he had some notion of American football through his hometown Hamburg Blue Devils of the German Football League, and he might have given it a go if he hadn’t suffered a broken kneecap a few weeks earlier.

As it happened, he didn’t need to play football to become smitten with it — and ever since — while living in what he called “Chiefs Land.” Through his new American friends and host family, he quickly became enamored of the Chiefs (as well as Kansas Jayhawks basketball) and sealed the feeling with an October 2001 trip to Kansas City to see them play the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Never mind that the Chiefs lost 20-17 on their way to a 6-10 finish in their first season under Dick Vermeil. Jensen was awed by Priest Holmes and Tony Gonzalez, whose jersey he got there and still has, and hooked by what he called “the sense of connection to the people there (and) the feeling of the hospitality and passion.”

Now he’s on the other end of cultivating that connection as Germany becomes its own approximation of “Chiefs Land” this week when Kansas City takes on the Miami Dolphins on Sunday in Frankfurt.

To some degree, he also embodies the reason the NFL and the Chiefs are taking such initiative to harness the bubbling love of the game in a country the league estimates features some 18 million fans ... and 3.6 million that could be considered avid.

The feeling to him is “still unreal,” he said by phone earlier this week, and he can’t wait to see what the “NFL air” will be like with the Chiefs here for just the second NFL regular-season game to be played in Germany. Last year, Tampa Bay and Seattle met in Munich. Next week, the Patriots and Colts will play in Frankfurt.

In some ways, the air of anticipation for this weekend in particular has been stoked by Jensen and his cohorts.

That’s both with their popular “Das Kingdom” podcast and in his full-time job as head of content at SPORTFIVE — a global sports marketing agency the Chiefs have partnered with to grow their fan base and business opportunities in Germany.

With Marius Wimmler and Fabian Niessl, Jensen last week co-hosted the 100th version of the German-language podcast dedicated to the Chiefs — a three-hour version, no less, to answer questions from dozens of their 3,000-some subscribers.

Their live program scheduled for this weekend sold out its capacity of 500 people before it was even put out on social media, said Jensen, who is rallying a march of Chiefs fans to Deutsche Bank Stadium for the game on Sunday.

For those interested in joining, tailgating will commence at 11:30 a.m. near the stadium at the tram station Stadion Strassenbahn. At 1, Das Kingdom’s announcement reads, “the fans march together to the arena to join our players for the warmup … and create an Arrowhead experience in Frankfurt” that includes what it calls a “stadium dress code” of red.

As if all that doesn’t speak to how deep this runs, Jensen also co-wrote (with Alex von Kuczkowski) “Patrick Mahomes: Die unglaubliche Geschichte des NFL-Superstars.”

Translated, that’s “Patrick Mahomes: The Incredible Story of the NFL Superstar.”

“It’s quite funny to do a biography about a player when he’s not even in the middle of his career,” Jensen said, laughing.

Then again, it was timed to come out last year with the understanding the Chiefs and Mahomes, the two-time NFL and Super Bowl MVP, would soon play in Germany.

So the book has sold 10,000-plus copies, he said, with perhaps a nice spike in sales awaiting now.

Reflecting his fascination with the Chiefs and Mahomes, Jensen also made what might be called a promotional pilgrimage last year with von Kuczkowski to Whitehouse (Texas) High, Mahomes’ alma mater, to watch a football game and interview past coaches.

Then it was off to Lubbock for more of the same at Texas Tech before driving to Kansas City for the Chiefs’ 2022 home opener against the Chargers.

Being “in the atmosphere of Arrowhead” again, he said, gave him goosebumps and made him reflect on where this all started more than two decades ago.

Since few games other than the Super Bowl were being broadcast in Germany for many years after his return, he could only follow the Chiefs so much for a decade or so after his time in Wichita. As their games became more accessible, he reveled in watching the likes of Jamaal Charles, Alex Smith and the early years of Travis Kelce.

As with so many others, though, it was the rise of Mahomes five years ago that compelled him to start following as closely as possible. He began writing about the Chiefs and, ultimately, authoring the book and beginning the podcast last year.

Speaking of Mahomes, and everyone will be, Jensen noted he’ll be central in any and all marketing in Frankfurt — only a few hours from the global headquarters of Adidas, one of Mahomes’ prime sponsors.

No wonder that within minutes of arriving in Frankfurt early Thursday morning we saw multiple ads featuring Mahomes.

The branding and exposure for the Chiefs also will enjoy intensifying interest in Travis Kelce brought on by his relationship with global superstar Taylor Swift, Jensen noted. With many “Swifties” in Germany, Jensen figures that will only further energize Frankfurt.

Consumed with Mahomes, Kelce, and the Chiefs as he might be, eager as he was to visit the Chiefs’ so-called “ChampionShip” central hub of activity and entertainment here, Jensen is quick to point out that this also is a celebration of the NFL.

His description of expecting tens of thousands in Frankfurt this weekend was reminiscent of the throngs that came to Kansas City for the NFL Draft in April.

“The whole city center will be packed with jerseys of all colors, all 32 teams,” he said. “You will see that the city is living the dream of the NFL being in Germany.”

And a dream time for him to keep trying to make this another part of “Chiefs Land.”