photo by: Nick Krug

An aerial shot from the east of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium in 2017.

Consulting firm Hunden Strategic Partners created a stir in the Kansas sports community when it suggested last month that KU should consider shrinking its football stadium’s capacity under 40,000 seats, from the current 47,233. That reduction, the consultants suggested, would make room for mixed-use development in the surrounding area as part of the school’s forthcoming campus gateway project.

After the Journal-World published a story on June 22 about the firm’s recommendations, KU athletic director Travis Goff pushed back the following day, stating in a tweet that “capacity will be over 40K,” and that the project would feature “something for everyone — affordable tickets, the best premium seating, real home field advantage. Oh yeah, and parking & tailgating are key priorities.”

Goff reiterated his stance in an interview with the Journal-World Monday morning, adding that “In this particular case, we’ve never talked about anything sub-40,000.”

He said that it was so clear to him that the proposed number of 39,839 was lower than anything the project’s organizers had discussed that he fired off a tweet right away from his vacation in Cape Town, South Africa, thinking “Let’s not let this become any more of a question, because it’s just a polarizing thing. Certain numbers, certain capacities can get people different types of emotional reactions.”

Goff added that the consultant, one of multiple consultants invited to assess the project, was considering the construction from an “economic impact lens.”

“And frankly speaking, I immersed myself in the report, but when I see a recommendation around capacity from that particular lens, we value it, but that’s just one of many points of data that helps inform around what capacity should be,” Goff said.

KU’s Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications and Public Affairs Karla Leeper previously said that KU must find the right balance between the stadium itself and surrounding facilities, because the stadium can only get activated seven times a year as opposed to other venues that might get used year-round. Hunden’s recommendations included a conference center, hotel and concert venue in the vicinity of the redesigned stadium, with the reduction in capacity — as well as the elimination of a parking lot and grassy area east of the stadium — helping to make space for the development.

Hunden’s proposal would make the stadium the smallest in the Big 12 Conference. The consultants noted a broader trend towards smaller venues and had pointed out that KU averaged 26,610 fans per game between 2015 and 2019.

Goff said that the momentum from KU’s 2022 season, in which the Jayhawks posted their best season since 2008 and sold out three straight games, continues to fuel ticket sales, saying “Don’t sell yourselves short on what this program could be.”

“I know one thing — hopefully — which is, if you only look back on the last 10, 12 years, and use that attendance as a primary driver of what you think capacity should be, you’re missing the mark,” he said. “The last decade to 12 years is not the aspirations we have for support and attendance around this program.”

At last month’s Kansas Athletics Board of Directors meeting, Goff and the athletic department’s Chief Financial Officer Pat Kaufman had said that increased interest in football yielded a surplus over the fiscal year 2023’s budget of $109 million. The board bet on a full cycle of continued growth when it expanded the budget to $127 million for the fiscal year 2024.

Goff added that because the hype surrounding the program dwindled following a 5-0 start and an appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay in October, the later games in the season provide a balance and allow 2022 to serve as a “pretty good conservative benchmark” for future financial projections. (On their way to a 6-7 finish, the Jayhawks hosted 43,606 fans in a Week 9 win over Oklahoma State and 38,246 in a Week 11 loss to Texas.)

More details on the gateway project are expected in the months to come. For now, it’s still not clear just how much additional development KU expects to incorporate near the stadium or what sort of capacity reduction that might require.