Super Bowl-champion Kansas City Chiefs will visit the White House. Here’s the scoop

Sam McDowell
·2 min read
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As the release of the full 2023 NFL schedule nears this week, we have another date on the calendar for the Kansas City Chiefs.

One final celebration of 2022.

President Joe Biden will welcome the Chiefs to the White House in Washington, D.C. on June 5 to commemorate their Super Bowl-championship season.

The Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII in February.

“Congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs on their Super Bowl win and to MVP @PatrickMahomes on leading the team to victory. Through injury and obstacles, you showed grit and true resilience,” Biden wrote on social media after the game.

Truth be told, it’s probably not the team Biden was hoping to host this summer — first lady Jill Biden grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and attended the game to root for the Eagles.

But it’s long overdue for the Chiefs.

They were not able to visit the White House after their 2019 Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers, with the COVID-19 pandemic arriving just a few weeks later.

In fact, it will be the team’s first trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The in-person tradition started in 1980, a decade after the Chiefs won their initial Super Bowl, though then-President Richard Nixon phoned that winning team in the locker room. Quarterback Len Dawson was on the receiving end of the call.

The visits to the nation’s capital have been somewhat controversial in recent years, with players refusing to attend based on a president’s political stances. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump disinvited the Golden State Warriors after reports that point guard Stephen Curry was considering not attending. A year later, he similarly uninvited the Philadelphia Eagles after several players planned to skip the tradition in protest.

Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt said during NFL Draft weekend last month that the team had begun coordinating dates for this year’s visit.

The Royals are the most recent Kansas City sports team to visit the White House, with Barack Obama welcoming them to Washington after the 2015 World Series championship.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.