KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City has entered its Super Bowl Dynasty Era, but will the new queen of Chiefs Kingdom help the city celebrate its third Super Bowl title in five years Wednesday at the Chiefs Champions Victory Parade?
“I have absolutely no comment on the whereabouts of Ms. Swift,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said Monday during a news conference addressing parade safety. “I know she has representatives who can talk to you on all of that.”
Lucas said he’s obviously aware of Taylor Swift mania that has swept Kansas City since the pop icon, whose record-setting “The Eras Tour” continues Friday in Australia, first started dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and began coming to her boyfriend’s games in late September.
Swift attended 13 games, including the Super Bowl LVIII win Sunday against San Francisco.
KCPD Chief of Police Stacey Graves said her department and organizers will be ready if Swift decides to join the party Wednesday as dozens of buses snake through downtown, culminating in another raucous celebration at Union Station.
“Absolutely, we’re prepared,” Graves said. “We will have at least 600 Kansas City, Missouri, police officers in and around the route. We will have over 250 outside agencies, about 34 other law-enforcement agencies as well as our federal partners. We are ready.”
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There has been no indication yet of Swift’s plans.
Before the 2020 Chiefs parade, a dangerous high-speed chase took place down the parade route, but that’s the only significant security incident from the last three championship parades in KCMO — in 2015 for the Royals’ World Series title and two other times, 2020 and 2023, for the Chiefs other recent Super Bowl wins.
“Every year, which thankfully we have another year, we get better and better,” Graves said. “We look at what we could have done better on the last one just to make sure every time it’s just a safer and safer environment for everyone to have fun.”
Lucas was on the field after Sunday’s 25-22 overtime thriller against San Francisco in Las Vegas, but he apparently failed to ask if she’d join Chiefs Kingdom’s revelry on Valentine’s Day.
“It was a tremendous honor — myself, the governor of Missouri (Mike Parson), several others — had a chance to be on the field,” Lucas said. “I try not to bother Ms. Swift in her daily operation. I talked to a number of our players, our coaches, got a hug from Andy Reid — all very exciting. But I tend to know a little more about football than all things Swift.”
But he encouraged Chiefs fans to keep an eye.
“Stay tuned; it’s a reason to watch the parade on Wednesday for everybody,” Lucas said.
KSHB 41, the Home of the Chiefs, is the official broadcast partner of the Chiefs Champions Victory Parade and will have the best perches, the most angles and unmatched coverage of the parade once again.
“Although, I am wearing a friendship bracelet,” Lucas said, holding up his left arm to show a red-and-yellow adornment, “that’s kind of just the thing now.”
Swifties, as the pop star’s devoted fans are called, are consumed with the fashion trend, trading bracelets like a swap-and-shop at her shows.
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