Appropriately nicknamed “Games” as a child, Lamar Hunt dedicated his career to entertaining sports fans, and his ideas and innovations permanently altered the landscape of professional sports. At the age of 29, frustrated by his repeated unsuccessful attempts to gain a franchise in the National Football League, the young entrepreneur decided to form a new professional football league to rival the NFL.
Hunt was the guiding figure behind the formation of both the AFL and the Dallas Texans franchise, which would later become the Kansas City Chiefs, and was the first AFL figure named to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 1972.
He was also instrumental in the growth of professional soccer in the United States. He founded the North American Soccer League (NASL) and, in 1995, started Major League Soccer (MLS), operating as many as three franchises. He brought a similar passion to professional tennis, and his World Championship Tennis (WCT) enterprise accelerated the growth of the sport in ways unthinkable to a growing legion of fans in the 1960s.
Lamar Hunt was an entrepreneur in both sports and business. One of his most notable innovations is Kansas City’s SubTropolis, the world’s largest underground business complex. Hunt was a man of extraordinary vision, faith and integrity, whose deep sense of humility was one of his most unwavering and most endearing traits.