The Kansas Jayhawks will play their home football games at Arrowhead Stadium and Children’s Mercy Park in 2024, the school announced on Tuesday.
Kansas’ on-campus home, David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, is undergoing significant renovations this year, which necessitated the move of the Jayhawks’ home contests.
All six Kansas home football games will be played in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The first two games against Lindenwood on Thursday, Aug. 29 and UNLV on Saturday, Sept. 14 will be played at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kan.
Children’s Mercy Park is the home of Sporting Kansas City of Major League Soccer (MLS). The venue is a soccer-specific stadium with a seating capacity of 18,467. Standing-room only tickets will add a few thousand to that number.
The Jayhawks’ four Big 12 Conference football games in 2024 will be contested at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. Those games will be against TCU (Sept. 28), Houston (Oct. 19), Iowa State (Nov. 9), and Colorado (Nov. 23).
Arrowhead Stadium is the home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and has a seating capacity of 76,416.
“This plan for the 2024 season has an incredible number of benefits for our student-athletes, our fans and supporters, our campus partners and the Kansas Football program,” said Kansas Director of Athletic Travis Goff. “While we are disappointed we can’t play in Lawrence, ultimately, we want to create the best possible experience for all involved, and playing two games at Children’s Mercy Park and four games at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium allows us to do that. It has been a thrill to see construction begin in earnest in Lawrence on the Gateway District and David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, and this decision allows that construction to continue on a necessary timeline while also benefiting the overall budget of the project and the 2024 fan experience.”
Per the announcement, Kansas will sell full six-game season tickets packages for games at both venues and four-game ticket packages for the games at Arrowhead Stadium only. Due to season-ticket holder demand, single-game tickets for the two contests at Children’s Mercy Park are not expected to be on sale.
Kansas Head Football Coach Lance Leipold: “This is an exciting move for our team as these are two well respected and exciting venues to watch a sporting event. I’m confident our fans will be able to create a ‘home field’ that our players will be energized to play in. Our administration has done an excellent job of partnering with both organizations and venues during our construction phase. This will allow the project to continue its path to completion in a timely manner and provide the best competitive advantage for our team during the transition.”
Kansas City Chiefs President Mark Donovan: “We are excited to host Jayhawks football games at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium while David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium is undergoing renovations. In addition to another huge summer of concerts and the FIFA 2026 World Cup, the stadium continues to serve as a community asset for the region. Our Arrowhead Events team has been working closely with the University of Kansas Athletic Department to ensure that players, coaches, staff and fans feel at-home. We look forward to seeing college football return to the home of the Chiefs this fall.”
Sporting KC President and CEO Jake Reid: “Sporting Kansas City and the University of Kansas are longtime supporters of one another. We’ve worked closely on numerous initiatives in recent years including preparations for FIFA World Cup 2026, playing Sporting KC II matches at Rock Chalk Park and also launching our Sporting U and Sporting U NIL platforms. We look forward to hosting Coach Leipold and the nationally-ranked Kansas Football program at Children’s Mercy Park and welcoming KU students and fans to cheer on the Jayhawks.”
Kansas Running Back Devin Neal: “I know the whole team is excited about having the opportunity to play in Kansas City this season. Obviously, we all love playing in Lawrence at The Booth, but this will be a great experience for our team and it’s what’s best for the future of the program and stadium. I know our fans will show up in a big way at Children’s Mercy Park and Arrowhead Stadium to provide a homefield advantage, the same way they have in Lawrence the past couple of seasons.”
Lawrence Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bonnie Lowe: “We have listened and heard the concerns from our business community, and while we all would rather be cheering on the Jayhawks at Memorial Stadium, we understand that growth of this magnitude comes with challenges. We have an opportunity for our businesses to showcase what they’re known for – their innovation and creativity – in finding fun, new ways to watch and celebrate KU Football. When we think about the new stadium, the Gateway District, and the conference center on the horizon for Lawrence, we will be well posed for future success.”
Turner Construction Operations Manager Joshua Jones: “Our collective Gateway District project team has been diligent in exploring all options for delivering a world class facility for the University of Kansas and KU Athletics. This process is inclusive of strategic reviews of project schedules, early procurement processes, reviews of alternative sequencing of workflow, key decision dates, material production timeframes and overall project budget to meet a final completion of August 1, 2025. Through this team partnership and continued coordination, the project team has recognized that hosting all home KU Football Games in 2024 at alternate locations creates a safer and more efficient environment to complete this project.
The Turner team is appreciative of the efforts that KU and the design team have made to support the safety of the community and our workforce by recognizing the incredible challenges that hosting games in 2024 at David Booth Memorial Stadium would have created. This decision creates the best path forward for our project team to successfully complete the new construction and renovations for the launch of the 2025 football season.”
Kansas Student Body President Turner Seals: “Although we’d obviously prefer to host our home games in Lawrence, we appreciate Athletics working to provide a great alternative venue for our team and school for the upcoming season with games at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium and Children’s Mercy Park. Student Senate will continue working with our partners at Athletics to ensure accessible bussing and other efforts to make it a great game day experience for our students and fans as a whole.”
Oklahoma State Cowboys & Arizona State Sun Devils Fan is looking forward to David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium to look new & improve once they have it’s grand reopening.
I never thought the Beakers would play home football games in Missouri, but I understand why their Big 12 home games had to be run there.
Desperation on the absence of a plan.
.
Texas A&M completely rebuilt Kyle Field and didn’t move games, for example. I mean SDSU playing in Carson was one thing, but KU playing in a small soccer stadium, and then in Missouri? And just announcing it now, not after the last home game of 23? It’s called PPP in business.
By the timing of the announcement against the release date of the XII schedule release it all but seems KU knew they had very little chance of having games played on-campus in 2024, despite what they told the local media outlets.
A&M never really had issues with or had to factor in poor winter weather impacting construction timelines. But because the margin for error was so small for KU’s preferred palns for 2024, they should have been more transparent about how realistic they actually were.