A cracking of fireworks and a deafening chant as drums thumped behind a curtain of smoke. Meanwhile, the leader of the White Walkers slowly rose from the ground with its arms raised for summoning. That’s what Sporting Kansas City fans were greeted to at Children’s Mercy Park before Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Major League Soccer club Sporting KC has some of the loudest, most passionate fans in the league. They spend 90 minutes in the “KC Cauldron” jumping up and down, yelling, drinking, and going nuts in order to push the 11 players on the field to a win.
It also seems the group is in touch with today’s pop culture as seen with the Game of Thrones tifo they displayed Sunday night. A massive Night’s King display hung under the iconic, now Thrones-themed “Welcome to the Blue Hell” banner. The figure brilliantly rose from the grounds to awe the 20,000 fans sitting in the stadium nicknamed “The Blue Hell.”
The gag was expertly timed, falling on a Sunday—Game of Thrones night for HBO watchers—and synced well with Sporting’s icy white and chrome jerseys. According to the club’s website it took supporters 325 hours of labor to create. Now that’s dedication.
Unfortunately for Sporting fans, it was only good enough for a tie. Maybe the team was simply too distracted by what was going on in the Seven Kingdoms.
