photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Big Jay gets the student section going before the game against Kansas State at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025 in Lawrence.

Lawrence’s football fortunes may be on the rebound.

Yes, that is an odd statement to make after Saturday’s rivalry game with Kansas State, but the football activity I’m referring to doesn’t involve watching the scoreboards.

Rather, look at sales tax reports. (I gladly would have, if I had any on me during Saturday’s game.) The state’s most recent sales tax report is the first one that includes sales made during KU’s football season, which is the first one in the revamped stadium and also the first time since the 2023 season that KU home games have been played in Lawrence. As you recall, KU played homes games in Kansas City last season while Kansas David Booth Memorial Stadium was under construction.

Thus, there has been some anticipation among people who watch these monthly tax totals of whether Lawrence would see a large bump in collections once games resumed locally.

The answer: Lawrence did plenty fine during the reporting period, but it is hard to say that it was solely related to football, as several other communities did even better.

Lawrence retail sales for the mid-August to mid-September period were up 8.3%, compared to the same period a year ago. That was far better than the statewide average of 5.4% for the month. Plus, City Hall budget-makers will gladly take an 8.3% increase any month out of the year.

However, such a jump also is not off the charts, and Lawrence has had a couple of months this year with larger increases. Additionally, there are signs that perhaps consumers were just in a general spending mood. You can see some of that in the list below showing the increases for the one-month period.

• Kansas City, Kan: up 31%

• Olathe: up 13.4%

• Lenexa: up 10.9%

• Shawnee: up 10.5%

• Lawrence: up 8.3%

• Sedgwick County: up 7.7%

• Salina: up 6.4%

• Manhattan: up 5.6%

• Topeka: up 3.3%

• Merriam: up 3.0%

• Statewide: up 5.4%

Maybe the Kansas City Chiefs already have moved to the Kansas side of the state line because multiple K.C. metro communities put up big numbers. Or, maybe, the late summer period is one where people were in spending mode.

No doubt, the reopening of Kansas David Booth Memorial Stadium helped boost the sales tax totals of Lawrence compared to 2024. There was a full stadium of fans in town who weren’t here last year. However, the one-month totals don’t yet show Lawrence should expect extraordinary increases in sales tax collections — 20% to 25%, for example — due to the stadium’s reopening.

However, Lawrence may not need extraordinary to end the year in good shape. As I mentioned earlier, increases of 8% will likely work just fine. The bigger-picture-numbers for Lawrence and City Hall’s budget — sales taxes are the largest source of funding for city operations — are the year-to-date numbers.

As we have been reporting all year, Lawrence needs sales tax growth of about 5% to stay on budget for 2025. For much of the year, Lawrence has been climbing up hill on that task. But now the city is nearing that mark. Lawrence has posted two consecutive months of more than 8% sales tax growth, and as a result, year-to-date collections are now up slightly more than 4%.

That puts Lawrence very close to where it needs to be to hit budget, especially considering that the numbers I’ve calculated don’t include use tax revenues. Those are special sales taxes charged for online purchases. When they are factored into the mix, they likely would bump that growth rate slightly higher. (I’ll warm up my fingers and toes and attempt to add those to the calculations next month.)

Here’s a look at how the major retail communities are faring on the year-to-date collections:

• Manhattan: up 5.0%

• Sedgwick County: 4.5%

• Salina: up 4.4%

• Olathe: up 4.2%

• Lawrence: up 4.0%

• Merriam: up 3.8%

• Topeka: up 2.6%

• Lenexa: up 2.4%

• Kansas City: up 2.0%

• Shawnee: up 1.7%

• Statewide: up 3.4%

Bottomline, whether it is football or something else, Lawrence has a chance to finish the year in good shape.