EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — During the past eight or nine years, many football fans have wondered: Is the NFL favoring the Kansas City Chiefs? Why do Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs always seem to get bailed out with a penatly flag against the other team?
No, you are not being paranoid or a delusional. Actually, science and research suggest you might be on to something.
Research done by a team at UTEP presents evidence that the Chiefs have benefited from slanted officiating from 2015 to 2023, a time that coincided with their rise as one of the NFL’s most marketable franchises.
Published in the journal Financial Review, the study provides “one of the clearest empirical looks at how financial pressures can influence real-time rule enforcement,” the UTEP research team said.
“Our findings suggest that when the league’s financial health is at stake, rule enforcement may subtly shift to protect market appeal,” said Spencer Barnes Ph.D., assistant professor of finance in UTEP’s Woody L. Hunt College of Business and the lead author of the study. “The fact that postseason penalties consistently favored one franchise, while similar dynasties showed no such pattern, points to the powerful role of financial incentives in shaping supposedly neutral decisions.”
The study shows that during the playoffs, which the research team identified as the NFL’s most commercially valuable period, penalties against opposing defenses of the Chiefs’ offense were significantly more likely to result in first downs, cover more yardage and fall into subjective categories such as roughing the passer or pass interference.
Importantly, these effects were absent from the Tom Brady–era New England Patriots and other recent Super Bowl contenders, suggesting the phenomenon is unique to Kansas City’s emergence as a television ratings powerhouse, the study found.
This, Spencer said, may be the result of financial pressures on the league stemming from the sharp decline in TV viewership and ratings during 2015–2017 seasons, just before Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback. Those seasons were marked by controversy over racial issues, most notably San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeing during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racism.
The implications extend beyond football, the research team says. The study draws parallels to financial markets, corporate governance and regulatory agencies, where dominant players may enjoy advantages not because of explicit corruption, but because institutions under pressure adapt to preserve stability and revenue.
“This research not only deepens our understanding of sports governance, but also illustrates a larger societal concern: When financial pressure weighs heavily, impartiality can erode,” said John Hadjimarcou, Ph.D., dean of UTEP’s Woody L. Hunt College of Business. “Spencer’s work demonstrates the power of academic inquiry to reveal hidden dynamics that affect fairness, competition and trust in institutions.”
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