Mahomes helped pay for polling station

Arrowhead becomes truly multi-purpose

Patrick Mahomes offered up his home Tuesday, inviting voters in to use it as a polling place.

His home, of course, is Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium and the Chiefs quarterback, along with the team, put up the money to purchase voting machines and open the place up.

It was the latest move by the 2019 NFL MVP, who has taken on national and local leadership roles in getting out the vote and pushing for social justice reforms.

“I thought it was very important. Not only just to get as many people out to vote as possible, but also to use a place (such) as Arrowhead where we have a lot of fun, show a lot of love and unity with people coming together, and use it as a place where we can come together to vote and use our voice,” Mahomes told the Huddle & Flow podcast with Jim Trotter and Steve Wyche.

Chiefs president Mark Donovan said that the election board initially balked, with one big reason being a lack of money with which to purchase voting machines.

“We finally had to go to them and say what's it going to take,” Donovan said. “And that's really what launched the idea of purchasing new machines. And so we, the Chiefs organization, the Hunt family (which owns the team) and Patrick Mahomes and his 15 and the Mahomies Foundation came together and said, `If that's what it's going to take, we're committed to this point. Let's go.' ”

Mahomes, who is 25, said he was voting for the first time and, in a team meeting on voting initiatives during the summer, realized that he hadn't properly registered.

Now the face of the NFL, Mahomes was part of a group of players whose video after the death of George Floyd helped sway NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to film a video in which he admitted the league was late to understand why players knelt during the national anthem and to say that Black lives matter.

Mahomes, who signed a 10-year, US$503-million contract extension with the Chiefs five months after winning the Super Bowl, also established roots in Kansas City, purchasing a stake in the Royals.

According to Donovan, costs that he described as “a six-figure investment by us” were split and may have an effect on voting in Kansas City for years to come.

Patrick Mahomes