In '18, the sale of student combo ticket packages for Missouri football fell 32.6% to 4,100GETTY IMAGES
Missouri football's average home game attendance dropped in '18 for the "fourth straight year, down to 51,465 per game," according to Daniel Jones of the COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE. This year's decline was a "tiny fall" from last year's average of 51,490 fans per game, but is a 21.8% "plummet from Missouri's five-year peak of 62,285 fans per game" in '14, when Mizzou made the SEC Championship Game. Attendance issues are a "plague across college football," with the average of 42,203 fans attending FBS games the "lowest per-game average" since '97. An issue "more unique to Missouri is a sharp decline in the sale of student tickets." In '17, MU "sold 6,083 student combo packages" at $229 each. In '18, the sale of those packages fell 32.6% to 4,100. Those packages were "sold at the same price, meaning a loss in sales of $454,100." MU Deputy AD/Communications Nick Joos said the school is "taking a very hard look at pricing for next year" for the general public. Joos said that "changes in ticket prices" would be announced in early '19, with some seats around Faurot Field "having lower ticket prices and others going up, depending on demand." Jones noted MU's athletic department "operated at a deficit in the last year it filed a financial report," FY '16-17 (COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE, 12/12).
