Kansas announces plans for over $300M in football upgrades

The University of Kansas announced plans Friday for long-awaited renovations to Memorial Stadium, the Anderson Family Football Complex and other facilities along with potential conference, entertainment and retail spaces.

The school has long studied ways to renovate the aging stadium, one of the oldest football venues in major college football, but support has been tepid as the Jayhawks struggled through year after year of losing seasons. The few upgrades that have taken place have been largely cosmetic, leaving the old concrete bowl almost entirely untouched.

But buoyed by a 5-0 start to the season, which has energized fans of the No. 19 Jayhawks, the school decided it was time to make public the behind-the-scenes discussions that have been taking place for the past several months.

«This project is unmatched in its vision to benefit a broad range of KU constituents while signaling a new era for Kansas football,» Jayhawks athletic director Travis Goff said. «Once complete, this project will ensure our football program has the facilities it needs to compete at the highest level and provide the best possible game-day experience for student-athletes and fans. Moreover, we are thrilled this project goes beyond football to benefit the entire university and the region.»

The Jayhawks face No. 17 TCU on Saturday in a showdown of unbeatens. It is the third consecutive sellout for the school, and ESPN has brought its popular College GameDay program to campus for the first time.

The project comes during a transformative era in college sports, in which the appeal of schools amid conference realignment — even at Kansas, the defending men's basketball national champion — has been dictated almost entirely by football.

Kansas has chosen