No one was happier to see the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl than the Empire State Building.
The Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on Sunday, giving the iconic Manhattan skyscraper the green light to..well, shut off the green lights.
The exterior of the building instead was illuminated in red and gold to honor the Super Bowl champion Chiefs, who saved the Empire State Building and its social media staff from another night of backlash.
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The building caused outrage in the New York tri-state area two weeks prior when its exterior LED-display lit up in Eagles’ green and white after the divisional rival of the New York Giants won the NFC Championship Game.
Football fans called for someone to be fired. Politicians condemned the decision. New Yorkers pledged allegiance to the Chrysler Building.
The lighting scandal - which came one week after the Eagles eliminated the Giants from the playoffs - made the cover of the New York newspapers, drawing responses from governor Kathy Hochul, mayor Eric Adams and multiple New York City departments.
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And still, the Empire State Building did not learn its lesson.
Had the Eagles held on to their fourth-quarter lead on Sunday, the building once again would have lit up in green and white and caused New Yorkers to see red.
During the Super Bowl, half of the building was lit in green and white for the Eagles while the other half was red and white for the Chiefs. For each touchdown, the colors of the scoring team sparkled.
After the Chiefs won, the green and white lights were shut off.
Truth is, the building has long honored championship teams by lighting up in their colors. Well before the recent outrage, the "Tower Lights Calendar" on the Empire State Building website showed the building would be in the colors of the winning teams of both the NFC and AFC Championship games on Jan. 29 and for the Super Bowl on Feb. 12.
And this was not the first year the Empire State Building has honored the Eagles. The building, which is just eight miles from MetLife Stadium, trolled all New York football fans simultaneously in 2018 when its colors were divided for the Super Bowl between the Eagles and New England Patriots, a divisional rival of the Jets.
