Watch: Chiefs President Mark Donovan’s Thursday Press Conference

On the annual Chamber of Commerce Chiefs Kickoff Luncheon:

“This is one of the many exciting traditions that really engages the community, in this case, the business community. It was interesting, I was coming in the door and three different CEOs came up to me, from big companies in Kansas City, and talked about how this is their favorite event because they get to come and interact with their team as well as our team.

“It is kind of unique in that sense because it's one of the few times you have players, coaches, staff all in one place, and no real stress of the game that day, or practice that day.
It's a great opportunity for us, it's something that we look forward to every single year."

On Friday’s game against Chicago, the annual Chiefs Charity Game:

“Chiefs Charity Game, one of the other very sacred traditions of our organization.
And I think I've told the backstory before, but it’s worth repeating. Shout out to Mr. (J.E.) Dunn and Lamar (Hunt). Imagine the two of them sitting around one afternoon and batting around ideas of how they can have a bigger impact on Kansas City. And here we are 41 years later, and that tradition continues because of those two great men.

“It has been something that we rotate the charitable beneficiary every year. This year is Jackson County CASA, which is court special advocates. In addition to raising money, I want to thank all of our suite-holders and others who support this. And last year we raised over $430,000.

“In addition to the money, it's really about the awareness. And I will tell you, personally, understanding and meeting some of the special advocates and the work they do for the children in our community, it's incredible. So, we've worked really hard in the last few years, and really highlighting the people who are involved in this and the amazing things that they do. And we're very thankful for that.”

On the Battle Sports Kansas City Classic between Cincinnati and Nebraska, Aug. 28, GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium:

“Ticket sales have been extremely robust. We're really excited to show off not only GEHA Field and the experience in Arrowhead, but also this town and Kansas City. It's another example of things that we bring to this organization, to this region.”

On Red Friday:

“A week later, we’ll have Red Friday. Excited to have it back on a Friday, and kind of unique in that sense in that we'll have a game that night (Sept. 5). So, that unique opportunity got our marketing team really excited as we play in São Paulo that evening. We'll be able to actually have Red Friday that morning, get people really excited as we go into playing the game that night.

“Consistently with the story about the Chiefs Charity Game, another idea, this is 34 seasons of Red Friday. Lamar was very focused on giving back and trying to figure out ways to give back. I credit our marketing team for doing a really good job of expanding the impact that we can have. And it is international now. You can buy flags all over the world. In addition, everyone needs to get out there on Friday morning and get their flags at your local McDonald's -- over 135 of them here and in St. Joe, and also at local Hy-Vees.

“Consistent with having a financial impact, we’ve raised over $7 million for Ronald McDonald House. Consistent with having an impact in Kansas City, that money, while it's a worldwide program, that money stays in Kansas City and directly impacts families in need. So, really excited to be a part of that, really excited to continue that great tradition.”

On stadium preparations for the 2026 World Cup:

“I'm really excited, and credit goes to our operations and construction staff for being able to get through a pretty challenging opportunity of changing a football field into a FIFA-regulated soccer field. We have done that. It's complete. Our fans will see it tomorrow night. It'll be interesting to see if the fans on that side notice the difference.

“To give you some stats and facts, the one thing that hit me as I talked to our construction crew was, it's 5-12 rows, about 3,500 seats were impacted. In order to get that done, we had to move 9 million pounds of concrete. So, think about that. We had to do it in between seasons and around other things. So, big credit goes to that crew. We're really excited for folks to see it live, but also, it really does help us to host probably the biggest event in sports in the World Cup.”

On the bullet that entered Andy Reid’s office in spring of 2024:

“Yeah, so, I'll speak briefly on it. I think that it's important to acknowledge that we obviously were well aware of this. When something like this happens, we call upon our protocols and processes. That's what we did in this situation. One of the pieces of that, it's a significant advantage being part of the NFL, is you have access to resources that not everyone has access to. So, we called in our experts very quickly at all levels, locally, regionally, nationally, and we sat down and assessed the situation.

“We cooperated with KCPD, got through the investigation, and then we went back and said, ‘Okay, here's where we are, here's the situation, here's what we determined happened; what's the next step -- both from a PR standpoint, from a communication standpoint?’ And we made our decisions and moved on. That's what happened.

“It's an important point to make that there are a lot of situations that happen in any big business, in any big city. There are a lot of situations we deal with. We have a process and protocol we go through, and we deal with the best in the world in terms of expertise on how to do that.”

On whether Reid’s office now has bulletproof glass:

“Yeah, so, one of the things I will say to that is that right now, it's that we work with experts. Not being a security expert myself, I had to learn that one of the processes you go through is understanding exactly what you share and what you don't share.

“And our focus and priority is keeping our staff, our fans, and everybody involved in our organization safe. So, I'm going to not share a lot of details, including that one.”

On how close the bullet was to hitting Reid:

“That's another one that we can go down this path with you guys all morning, but I'm probably going to be really brief with you. We have a process in place. We go through that process. We're confident in the process. But one other thing I will add, though, is when you think about this organization and what we do, right? Tomorrow night, there’ll be 70,000 people at our stadium. It's our job to keep them safe.

“Rest assured that we invest everything we possibly can to make that happen. Because we have access to things that other people don't have access to. And we utilize that to make sure that not only our stadium, but our training facility is as safe as possibly can be.

“I'll make this final point. Having said all that, every single year, we've got to evolve, we've got to enhance, we've got to increase, and we've got to spend to make sure we are as safe as possible. And we've done that. You see some of that physically. A lot of things you don't see, and there's a reason for that. It's what we believe keeps us all safe.”

On whether the shooting affects the team’s prospects for a new stadium:

“It really doesn’t. I think in any situation, just echoing what I just talked about, in any situation, you have to be fully prepared, no matter where you go. It's something that we will be fully prepared, no matter where we go.”

On whether keeping the incident from the public was a conscious decision, due to the ongoing investigation?

“I don't want to go too deep into that other than to say that we sat with the experts on both the investigation side of it, the communication side as well as the safety side, and we decided this was the right path to take.”

On whether Patrick Mahomes has had his best preseason:

“I always defer those questions to the experts, so (Brett) Veach and Coach (Reid). But I do have a lot of conversations with Veach and Coach about things like this and I know they're really excited. Patrick's Patrick and not only is he gifted as a quarterback, but his competitive side is what makes him different in my opinion.

“So, you've seen that all camp long and we're really excited about getting started this season.”

On whether Reid needed to change his routine after the incident:

“Andy and I have worked together for 20-plus years, so we've been through a lot. And when this happened, we sat down and went through the same system, same process, and got to the point of saying, ‘Okay, here's where we are.’ And he was completely on board with that process and what we were doing and how we were doing it. So, your question specifically, didn't affect his routine.”

On the reception he’s received from the ESPN docuseries The Kingdom:

“Just because it’s relevant time-wise, it was pretty cool to sit on my couch last night and turn on ESPN, and something you were involved in is right there. Like, I wasn't watching the game, I went, ‘Hey, wow, we're on ESPN. How cool is that?’ Laura Krug and Gelsomina (Picariello) from Foolish Club Studios, they deserve a lot of credit. But one of the coolest things I got from her was, ‘Yeah, as cool as that is, we're in the top 10 of watched on Disney and ESPN.’ And that's cool.

“In addition to being cool, it speaks to the passion for this team, the passion for getting an inside look at this team. And I think one of the things that The Kingdom did was it humanized us a bit, the key characters. To learn more about Kareem Hunt, him, and how things were affecting him, but also how we as a family, as an organization, not only dealt with it, but created the opportunity for this to happen. Now, those are the kind of stories that are tough to share and to have that format to do it was pretty powerful and it's proven that way from the early reviews.”

On Reid’s reaction to the incident:

“Yeah, so my PR team was really good with me this morning and so I'm going to do this as politely as I possibly can, but I'm done talking about that.”

On hosting Taylor Swift at the stadium, and working with Travis Kelce:

“Look, she's an authentic member of the Chiefs Kingdom. And we hope that she's there a lot more. I know, from the early information I have, she plans on being there a lot more. It's an incredible opportunity for us, but we try to look at it as she is a member of our family. So, we try to treat her that way and don't overdo it. That's difficult with one of the biggest stars in the world.

“We work very closely with her team, work very closely with Travis to make it as normal as possible. And that's important to her. I know that's really important to Travis. He and I've talked about that. So, we do as best we can to keep it as normal as possible and dealing with the actual reality of who you’re dealing with.”

On playing in Brazil as the designated visiting team on Sept. 5, and capitalizing on that exposure:

"If you go back to our goal of being the world's team and to get the opportunity to be the away team in a market, I'm getting a little technical here with you guys, but in a market where we actually don't have international rights, I think it speaks to how we approach this.

“So, we looked at that as this amazing opportunity. We don't have the rights to do this, so we're playing what can we do. And I think because we're so involved with the whole league-wide push for international growth and because we've made so many commitments to do it, and have been willing to play as much as we possibly can, we were able to work directly with the NFL to actually expand our rights around the game.

“Because our expansion, what we do and how we do it from a marketing standpoint, from a social-media standpoint, from an influencer standpoint, actually impacts the league as well. It's a positive for all of us. So, they've expanded those rights for both us and the Chargers. And you're going to, I’ll just tease, you’re going to see some things that are pretty amazing on a worldwide scale that we were able to do around this game, and not only the promotion of the scene but the celebration of this game.

“So, we're really excited about that. Brazil is a huge market. It's something we're very strategic on where we go and how we go. So, Germany was very strategic, Mexico was very strategic. Switzerland-Austria was an add-on to Germany. But then we looked at, how do we get more pan-European? We had Spain, we had Ireland, we had the U.K. But we didn't really go south. And then all of a sudden they dropped this on our schedule.

“So, now we're taking another look at going south and does it make sense to build the momentum that we'll have coming out of the Brazil game?”