photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Renovation work at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium is pictured on June 13, 2025.

Frisco, Texas — Kansas athletic director Travis Goff and the rest of the athletic department have long repeated that the David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium renovation process is on time and on budget for the Jayhawks’ season opener against Fresno State on Aug. 23.

Now, though, the stadium — or at least 70% of it, as part of phase one of the project — is starting to look much closer to a finished product.

“It’s a little bit surreal,” Goff said on Wednesday at Big 12 media days. “I went through there Monday for about two and a half, three hours, just looking at everything from some of the branding and storytelling, to light fixtures and touching cabinets and opening drawers, seeing the general concession experience and how that’s going to play out. It was a really special couple hours, to be honest.”

At this point, as Goff added later, there are not many significant aspects of the new Booth that remain incomplete, particularly once the new turf (the pattern for which KU Athletics has recently revealed on social media) gets implemented over the course of the next couple weeks.

“I can’t wait for our fans to experience it,” Goff said. “I mean, there’s going to be some kinks and some stumbles to that opening, but I think that’s part of the fun, and our people deserve a venue of that degree of excellence, and our guys, obviously our student-athletes, deserve it as well and I know they can’t wait to run out of that tunnel.”

It won’t be the first time the Jayhawks take the field. Goff added that beginning Aug. 1, there will be opportunities for people to enter the stadium site without personal protective equipment. That will include chances for the football team to practice on the new turf under the wheat-themed lights.

The conference center in the northern portion of the stadium is set for an October opening, but Goff maintains that “every aspect of a football game day” will be ready to go as the Jayhawks welcome the Bulldogs to the facility on Aug. 23.

And then the attention will eventually turn to phase two, which primarily concerns the still-unrenovated east end of the stadium.

“Can’t avoid it,” Goff said. “Any time you look at this thing, you go, ‘Man, it’s a really great reminder that we’ve got to finish what we’ve set our sights and our vision toward.'”

He said that while the initial capacity of the revamped stadium is set to be “a hair above” 40,000, it could get higher into the 40s upon the completion of the east side. Goff also wants a certain level of flexibility to adjust seating numbers even once the second phase is completed.

“The question still remains — because we haven’t finished design for an east side — the question still remains about the precise number of that,” he said.

Indeed, KU Athletics officials have previously said that their tentative plan is to commence the second phase upon the conclusion of the 2025 season. On Wednesday, Goff said he isn’t ready to “soon announce” the second phase, but that KU is getting closer with the addition of municipal incentives and the like.

He also teased an upcoming fundraising announcement that he described as “one of one in college athletics history.”