Ready for your close-up

We're now just over 24 hours from seeing David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium filled with fans again for the 2026 season opener between Kansas and Long Island at The Booth.

Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. Friday night and the game will be shown on television on ESPNU.

For those who are able to make it to the game, you'll see a slightly different stadium than The Booth the Jayhawks played in last season after the completion of Phase 1 of the rebuild project that is the centerpiece of KU's Gateway District plan.

While the east stands will not be completely done in time for the 2026 season, KU AD Travis Goff, who led the media on a tour of the new construction on the east side of the stadium on Thursday, said they are still well on track to open the completely finished stadium a year from now, at the outset of the 2027 Kansas football season.

So, what can fans expect to see on the east side this season?

Well, there will be some temporary components and a few inconveniences, but there also will be a good glimpse at what it all will look like when it's fully finished.

More stadium storytelling...

Be sure to check out our Thursday story about a former KU football player who is now a senior project manager with JE-Dunn Construction and heavily involved with the Gateway District project.

"This isn’t just another job. This means something to me. It means a lot.” 

This year's capacity will be right around 32,000 fans. When the stadium is done, that number will jump to 43,000. So the Jayhawks are only 11,000 fans down from the final number, something Goff said was a big win this offseason.

"We're incredibly pleased with that," he said. "We weren't sure a year ago what capacity would be for this season."

There was talk of it being in the 20s, so to get to 32,000 is a big deal. They do, of course, have to get 32,000 fans in the stands and Goff said after Thursday's tour that Game 1 was not yet sold out.

"I don't know," he said, when asked if the game against Long Island would be a sellout. "Ask me in 24 hours, or 27 or 28 hours. Do we care? Yeah. We care. Are we gonna get caught up in it one way or another? No. We want a great crowd and a great experience for everyone who does make it and that's what we're focused on."

Goff noted that the stadium still being under construction is symbolic of the progress that's still being made within the transformation of the football program. While they have made great strides, he said KU football is still in the process of resetting the culture that has been 5+ years in the making.

To that end, Goff said the general mindset, with regard to support, fan experiences, construction and the culture component, is to "keep the foot on the gas."

While the east side does have a fair amount of chair-back seating, a good chunk of it is also the bleacher style seats. Goff said there are three reasons for that.

For one, they want the students who will be situated in the northeast corner of the stadium — additional student seating will be in the south end zone bleachers, with the band — to be on their feet during the game, doing their part to help make the environment as tough as possible for KU's opponents. On top of that, he acknowledged that there was a financial benefit, or cost-saving measure, involved with that decision and that the bleachers create greater capacity than the chair-back seating.

Beyond that, the section of the east side where the visiting fans will sit is also bleacher seating because, frankly, Goff said KU doesn't care to spend money to ensure that the opponent's fans are comfortable.

In all, the newly built east stands, which feature the framework for the upper level that will not be completed until after the 2026 season, features more than 1,700 tons of steel and was done on time and at a great pace, taking just 8 months from the start of demolition in mid-December to get to where they are today.

"On a project like this, you don't get relief, so we always knew we had to make today's deadline," said JE-Dunn Construction vice president David Young, who joined Thursday's tour with a few others from the project team.

Young added that the project had its final walk-throughs just Thursday morning, making it fully ready for game day on Friday.

Added Goff of that first moment when wrecking ball hit the old stadium last December: "That was a big deal the first time we took a big chunk of concrete out of the east side. There was no turning back from there."

Goff understands that there will be some growing pains this season, with those seated on the east side experiencing most of them. They include entry logistics, potential logjams en route to seating, new experiences for KU students and the use of temporary concessions and restrooms.

He just hopes that people will see the good that has been done and remember that many, if not all, of those inconveniences in 2026 will be gone by 2027.

"We've done everything in our power to maximize the temporary conditions," Goff said.

As part of the ongoing celebration of what this project has been, is currently and still will be, Goff said they actually are slightly ahead of where they thought they'd be in some areas, the two most notable being the complete installation of the LED lighting all the way around the stadium and having some of the premium spaces on the east side in place for Game 1.

"The project team far exceeded high expectations on that," Goff said.

The Booth will remain an active construction site throughout the season and Young said the project team would do everything it can to work as much as possible on non-game days.

As for the progress that will be made during the 2026 season?

"You won't notice a real difference from Game 1 to the end of the season," Young said during the tour. "It'll basically all be behind the scenes."

And outside the walls.

Perhaps the most noticeable progress on the project as a whole during the next six months will come in the Gateway District, where the hotel, student housing, a parking garage and a public-facing plaza will eventually sit.

The two residence towers are targeting 2028 as the date they become operational, with the hotel being finished not long after that.

As he prepares to share the new version of The Booth with thousands of KU fans on Friday night, Goff said KU, as a whole, continues to celebrate the momentum and progress that already has been made as people start to really see the full vision of the project taking shape.

When it's done, Goff remains confident that it will be one of the elite facilities, and districts, in all of college athletics.

"We're proud to say we think it stands alone and that it's so unique that there's not a great direct comp," he said, when asked if The Booth and surrounding Gateway District was modeled after anything else out there.

— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com