Ad Disclosure
Report: Mizzou’s actual vs. reported attendance vastly different in 2018
By Adam Spencer
Published:
Even though the Missouri Tigers finished 8-5 in 2018, they didn’t exactly do a great job drawing fans to Faurot Field.
Oftentimes, the stadium was half-empty, and that was during good games. For the season finale against Arkansas, a rainstorm kept many fans away, despite coach Barry Odom buying more than 5,000 tickets for Mizzou fans.
According to a report from the Columbia Missourian, only about 47 percent of the fans who reportedly attended games (per numbers from the university) actually had their tickets scanned:
According to NCAA reporting documents obtained by the Missourian through an open-records request, the average number of tickets scanned for the football team’s seven home contests in 2018 was 24,377 per game, or roughly 47 percent of what the school reported in its game box scores.
University officials tried to explain the discrepancy, but it doesn’t seem like a great explanation:
Athletic department officials, however, say the numbers they reported to the NCAA aren’t a full picture of the actual ticketed attendance in the 2018 season because faulty scanners, which were sensitive to the elements, and poor Wi-Fi connectivity forced event staffers to move large swaths of fans through the gates without recording their tickets into the system.
So, based on the report, either fans weren’t showing up or the Mizzou stadium staff and systems are utterly incompetent. Not sure which would be worse, there.
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
