After failing to become the first team in NFL history to win three consecutive Super Bowls, the Kansas City Chiefs have also been denied the chance to win any ESPYS hardware this year.
The Chiefs, including quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce, were snubbed when the nominations for the 2025 ESPY Awards were announced on Thursday, June 26.
Mahomes, 29, and Kelce, 35, were not nominated in the categories of Best Athlete, Men’s Sports or Best NFL Player.
Chiefs quarterback Mahomes was the two-time defending winner in Best Athlete, Men’s Sports. The nominees this year are Saquon Barkley (Philadelphia Eagles), Josh Allen (Buffalo Bills), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City Thunder) and Shohei Ohtani (Los Angeles Dodgers).
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Barkley, 28, and Allen, 29, are also nominated for Best NFL Player alongside the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and the Denver Broncos’ Patrick Surtain II.
The Chiefs were also snubbed in the Best Team category in favor of the Eagles, who beat them in February’s Super Bowl LIX, the NBA champion Thunder, the World Series champion Dodgers, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the WNBA champion New York Liberty, the NCAA women’s lacrosse champion North Carolina Tar Heels, the gold medal-winning United States women’s national soccer team and the NCAA women’s basketball champion UConn Huskies.
Elsewhere, the nominees for Best Athlete, Women’s Sports are gymnast Simone Biles, Las Vegas Aces player A’ja Wilson and track and field stars Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas.
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark was not nominated for Best Athlete, Women’s Sports, but was nominated for Best Record-Breaking Performance and Best WNBA Player, alongside Wilson, 28, the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier and the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart.
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As for Mahomes, Kelce and the Chiefs, the team will officially begin preparations for the 2025 season when training camp opens on July 22.
Kelce announced he would be returning for at least one more season in February, citing the Chiefs’ 40-22 loss in the Super Bowl as the major reason.
“I think the biggest thing is that I f—ing love playing the game of football,” Kelce said on his “New Heights” podcast in March. “I love playing, I still feel like I can play at a high level. And possibly at a higher level than I did last year, I don’t think it was my best outing. I let my guys down in a lot more moments than I helped them, especially if you look at my track record and how I’ve been in years past. I just, you know, I wanna give it a good run.”
The 2025 ESPY Awards, hosted by comedian Shane Gillis, air live July 16 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN+.
