Kansas City Chiefs refusing to host Pride Night is satire

If you believe what you read on social media, you might think the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs have taken a stance against LGBTQ+ Pride. But that’s just the internet fumbling the truth.

“Breaking: Kansas City Chiefs refuse to host a Pride Night, ‘It’s woke ageпda,’” read a viral Oct. 4 Facebook post. 

The post, which had more than 50,000 likes as of Oct. 7, directed readers to an article claiming the Kansas City Chiefs issued a “formal declaration” that it would “not be hosting a Pride Night event at Arrowhead Stadium, citing concerns over what they refer to as the ‘woke agenda.’”

(Screenshot of Facebook post)

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

That’s because it’s baseless: This claim — and the story the post linked to — originated as satire. 

In early September, the claim was shared by SpaceX Fanclub, a Facebook account that shares satire. Its bio declares, “We post SATIRE nothing on this page is real.” 

The account’s Sept. 5 post featured the same headline and linked in the comments to the satire website Esspots.com. The article linked in the recent Facebook post is an exact copy-paste of this satirical Esspots article. 

The original SpaceX Fanclub post included a watermark indicating it is “Rated Satire,” but a disclaimer did not appear on the recent Facebook post. Some commenters appeared to believe the claim was authentic. “It’s about time someone stood up!” one wrote. “Good for them!” wrote another.

PolitiFact found no legitimate news or press releases from the Chiefs declaring the team “refused” to host a pride event. In June, we rated a similar claim False. 

Harrison Butker, the team’s kicker, made headlines earlier this year after delivering a Catholic college commencement speech during which he referred to Pride as a “deadly sin” with “an entire month dedicated to it.”

But there is no evidence this reflects the team’s position. In fact, the team’s official pro-shop sells Pride-themed Chiefs merchandise.

We have fact-checked several claims that originated on SpaceX Fanclub or Esspots and spread without any disclaimers, including others related to football and LGBTQ+ topics. 

We rate the claim that the Kansas City Chiefs refused to host a Pride Night False.