It’s official: Kansas City Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes II has brought a popular taste of Texas to his new home.
Lines of cars jammed the streets as the fast food chain Whataburger opened its first location in Kansas City, Kansas, and Mahomes helped make it all come together by partnering with KMO Burger Group. Though there are now five Whataburgers in the greater KC area, this was the first inside the Kansas City, Kansas, city limits.
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Money Mahomes Doesn’t Miss
If you live in Kansas or Missouri, get used to Whataburger because it’s here to stay. KMO Burger Group plans to open 30 locations over the next seven years, according to an August 2021 press release distributed by PR Newswire.
In an April Twitter thread, sports business writer Andrew Petcash explained how Mahomes, who has quickly become the face of Kansas City, will someday become the NFL’s first billionaire player, and most of the reasons were related to business investments such as the Whataburger.
Restaurant Business valued the burger chain’s revenue stream at $2.7 billion in 2020, ranking Whataburger 26th on its list of the top 500 restaurants. Those figures yielded a year-over-year sales change of 5.6% growth and a year-over-year unit increase of 1.7%.
Compared with some of the other top 25 chains on that list — with other chains’ negative sales and unit change figures — Whataburger appears to be climbing the list.
Mahomes seems to have picked a winner, and the cherry on top is the company’s Texas roots, a piece of home for the Tyler native. Whataburger started in 1950 in Corpus Christi and is now headquartered in San Antonio. KMO Burger, a franchise of Whataburger, is based in Kansas City, Kansas.
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Financial Planning, by Mahomes
Like King Midas, everything the signal-caller touches seems to turn to gold. Just look at last week’s coverage of “The Match” celebrity golf tournament as the prime example. After swigging his “swing juice,” “Mahomes gave Coors Light the equivalent of $110,000 in [free] advertising” by choosing to drink the beer, according to Apex Marketing, sports business reporter Darren Rovell tweeted on June 2.
Based on that, imagine what Mahomes can do as a brand ambassador, a role he has for a few of the companies he’s invested in.
Here are some of most recent financial moves made by Mahomes, and his wife, Brittany:
- A $10 million stake in the Kansas City Royals (MLB).
- Part-ownership in Sporting Kansas City (NWSL).
- Hyperice as an investor and brand ambassador.
- Whoop as an investor and brand ambassador.
Petcash also previously noted on April 18 that Mahomes was financially involved with Whataburger, Airshare, Buzzer, Biosteel and Dapper Labs, adding that the football star “plans to bring an NBA team to Kansas City one day.”
If he can do that, maybe that first billion will come quickly than expected.
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Patrick Mahomes Brings $2.7 Billion Franchise to Kansas City: Report