Chiefs games have been a TV ratings hit in St. Louis

Call it the Patrick Mahomes effect or simply a byproduct of a city without an NFL team, but the Chiefs have proved to be a ratings hit on the other side of Missouri.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Chiefs games on national TV have outperformed other contests broadcast in St. Louis. Ditto for the Sunday afternoon games.

“When we have the opportunity to air the Chiefs, that is our first pick every time,” Mike Murphy, general manager of KMOV, the CBS affiliate in St. Louis, told the Post-Dispatch. “We’ve gone back on (what CBS wanted us to take) a couple times, we said, ‘No, we want to go with the Chiefs.’ “

The Post-Dispatch story noted that the Chiefs’ two “Sunday Night Football” game has averaged a 12.4 rating in St. Louis compared with 9.8 for the five non-Chiefs games. And the Chiefs-Broncos meeting on Oct. 1 was the highest-rated “Monday Night Football” game at 7.6 in St. Louis, compared with 5.2 for the other games.

Also, the Chiefs’ three noon games have averaged a 7.3 rating in St. Louis, and the nine other contests were at 6.4.

After the Rams left for Los Angeles, Chiefs president Mark Donovan told The Star in 2016 that the team would take a “strategic approach” to marketing in St. Louis.

“The way the league rules work, there are differences with tickets, broadcast, television and radio (and) what you can and can’t do,” Donovan said. “Because it’s in the state we’re in, we have some rights there from a marketing perspective, but you’ve seen other teams reach out already. Indianapolis put a little campaign together to welcome fans over to Indy, and like I said, we’ll be strategic about it but we’ll be respectful about it.”

Not everyone in St. Louis has turned to the Chiefs (some are still upset about a report that Chiefs owner Clark Hunt voted to approve the Rams’ move to St. Louis), but others have, and that is seen in more than the TV ratings.

Some fans have made a point of saying so on social media: