As Kansas Athletics continues to renovate the KU football stadium, playing remaining home games at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City for the rest of the season will come with a steep price tag.
KU is paying a $125,000 rental fee, on top of a “game and resodding expenses” fee that ranges from $485,000 to $720,000 “depending on attendance levels” for each game played at Arrowhead, according to the signed contract.
The university first provided a copy of the contract on Oct. 8 but redacted what Kansas Athletics was actually paying to use Arrowhead Stadium for four games this season, citing a provision of the state’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act — in other words, that the price tag was a proprietary piece of information the public wasn’t entitled to know.
The Times objected to that redaction, and the university provided an unredacted version of the contract on Friday afternoon.
KORA-2024-291_KAI-Arrowhead-Events-2024_updatedClick here to open the PDF in a new tab.
Here are some other noteworthy items from the contract to use Arrowhead Stadium:
• KU is to use “commercially reasonable efforts to cause” their game on Saturday, Nov. 9 vs. Iowa State University to kick off as early as possible because of Kansas City’s NFL game at the stadium the following day.
• All premium seating revenue (suites, field boxes, etc.) is retained by Arrowhead, except for six suites that are available to KU on a complimentary basis. Another 10 suites may be available to KU for which they can retain 25% of the ticket revenue.
• Arrowhead is responsible for concessions, and retains all revenue from concession sales.
• KU retains 80% of revenue from merchandise sales on the property.
• KU and Arrowhead will “settle” the costs of each game within 30 days of the game.
• KU had to provide general liability insurance between $5 million and $15 million.
• The contract was signed by at least one party as late as Sept. 26. KU’s first game at Arrowhead came the next day in a loss against TCU.
David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium is slated to reopen for the 2025 football season as part of a $448 million Phase I of a project dubbed the Gateway District, which includes a new conference center adjoined to the north side of the stadium.
KU played its first two games of what has been a 1-5 start to the season at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. Those games came with an initial price tag of around $200,000.
KU is scheduled to kick off against Houston at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. The game can be viewed on ESPN+.
Other games at Arrowhead this season include Iowa State on Nov. 9 and Colorado on Nov. 23. See the season schedule at this link.
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Conner Mitchell (he/him), reporter, can be reached at cmitchell (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com or 785-435-9264. If you have sensitive information to send Conner, please email connermitchell (at) protonmail (dot) com. Read more of his work for the Times here.
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