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Missouri Western athletic director Dave Williams, pictured here, and other university officials traveled to several training camps to fine-tune their vision for the Kansas City Chiefs training camp, which the campus will host for the first time next year.

Some simple details blur the line between dreams and nightmares. For Missouri Western State University athletic department leaders, the dream of hosting the Kansas City Chiefs’ summer training camp shifts to the cold-sweat variety when it comes to accounting for 15,000 Chiefs’ fans.

That’s the number of people who show up for weekend practices at the Chicago Bears’ training camp at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill., a suburb about 45 minutes from downtown Chicago.

“Crowd size: That’s the big unknown,” said Dave Williams, Western athletic director. “And it’s our biggest concern.”

Mr. Williams and a handful of Western officials spent the last few weeks traveling around to four NFL training camp sites: the Chiefs’ current setup in River Falls, Wis.; the Minnesota Vikings at Mankato State University in Mankato; the St. Louis Rams at their St. Louis facility; and the Chicago Bears.

The tours provided plenty of opportunities to learn about how to host a good training camp, as well as ways to maximize the benefits for the university and the community.

“We wanted to get a look at the guts of it,” said Brett Esely, Western’s assistant athletic director for external relations. “It helped us get a broad, overall sense of what we need to do.”

In terms of logistics, the Western team focused on handling crowds and parking.

Mr. Williams said the Vikings’ situation at Mankato probably makes for the best comparison. The Mankato campus is similar in size to Western’s, and the Vikings draw anywhere from 1,500 people on a weekday morning to 7,000 on weekends.

“How do you prepare for that big of a difference?” Williams said. “What is our capacity? We have to figure out what our max is.”

“We know we can’t hold 15,000 people. We can probably hold 12,000 or 10,000, but we have to figure out exactly what that number is, then plan for how to manage for it in terms of parking, traffic flow and security.”

The other big lesson brought back centered around fans’ experience while at the camp.

Mr. Williams said the Bears especially do a superior job of providing whole-family entertainment, supplementing the football practices with children’s activities, VIP tents, corporate areas and more.

“It was almost like a carnival-type activity,” he said. “But that’s what you need to do to build repeat customers.

“People will come once for the novelty to watch the football team. But how many 10-year-olds are going to watch two hours of practice? It’s still practice we’re talking about. It’s not that exciting. But will they come more times if we have fan-friendly activities? We think so.”

Western also must figure out ways to pay for the camp. While the Chiefs provided $10 million toward construction of the necessary new facilities on the Western campus, the actual host duties — such as security, maintenance and groundskeeping — will be paid for by the university.

Mr. Williams said the school plans to be entrepreneurial as it tries to find ways to generate revenue, such as charging for parking or the fan activities.

“We want to make it affordable,” he said, “but also cover our costs.”

And all of that has to fit within the confines of the Chiefs’ football needs.

“The No. 1 priority of the camp has to be that the Chiefs are preparing for their season,” Mr. Williams said. “You can’t have the fan experience affect their football experience, and that’s a challenge.”

But it’s a challenge about which Western officials now feel more comfortable. The tours removed much of the mystery and unknown facing those planning for the transition.

“After River Falls, we all kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Boy, we can do this,’” Mr. Williams said. “We’re really confident now. This is something that we absolutely can do a good job with.”

Sports Editor Scott Pummell can be reached at scottp@npgco.com.