Ty “X-Factor” Rowton is one of Football’s most dedicated superfans, if not the most dedicated. He is famous for both his boundless devotion to NFL team the Kansas City Chiefs and for holding the Guinness World Record for most hours of Football watched in one go—he sat through 70 straight hours of NFL on TV (that’s two hours short of three days). He has been visible at games for well over two decades thanks to his distinctive red-and-yellow costume, his triangular ‘X-Factor’ hat, and his oversized ‘X-Factor’ medallion. His run of attending 329 consecutive Chiefs home games came to an end in September 2020 as he made a stand on the “social issues” that he felt were becoming part of the game. His love of all things Chiefs remains undimmed, however, and he even has his own Cameo account where fans can request a personal message from the fan’s fan.

Rowton, unsurprisingly, hails from Kansas City. A keen Chiefs fan thanks to his dad, a season-ticket holder who rarely missed a home game, Rowton Jr began painting himself in the club’s red-and-yellow colour scheme in 1992 in order to try and get on TV. Over time, this evolved into him dressing up as a red-and-yellow spider-man to entertain the club’s younger fans. Sometime after that, he experienced a vision whilst having a shower—that he was “X-Factor” and his mission was to lead the Chiefs fans to the Superbowl. His friends, perhaps understandably, were a tad dubious at this claim (Rowton had been up working for two days), but when the Chiefs won their first Superbowl for 50 years in 2020, his vision appeared to come true.