Mizzou Athletics announces changes to fundraising structure. Here’s what it means
On Monday, Mizzou Athletics announced significant changes to its fundraising structure set to take effect at the start of the new year.
Starting on Jan. 1, 2025, the Tiger Scholarship Fund, which covers the cost of attendance, academic support and scholarships for all 20 MU sports, will be rebranded to the “Mizzou Athletics Fund.”
“We are on a mission to deliver consistent, high-level winning programs like our fans have never experienced before,” University of Missouri athletic director Laird Veatch said. “As college athletics prepares to enter the revenue-sharing era, we have been laser focused on finding ways to elevate Mizzou’s position and capitalize on the opportunities in front of us.”
Veatch said renaming the athletics fund will more accurately reflect how donors already contribute to much more than scholarships.
In a news release, Mizzou Athletics outlined plans to prioritize three key areas — game day experience (seating and parking), the Mizzou Leadership Circle and the Mizzou Legacy Societies — as the world of collegiate athletics embarks on a new era of spending.
The game-day changes will offer fans priority access to seating and parking options. The Mizzou Leadership Circle will honor MU’s most generous donors who contribute beyond seat-related donations, providing them with exclusive benefits such as VIP events, team travel opportunities and other special access. The Mizzou Legacy Societies will celebrate lifetime philanthropic contributions to Mizzou Athletics.
The changes are aimed to give those who contribute to the scholarship/athletics fund a more transparent look at where their contributions are going.
“The Mizzou Athletics Fund is designed to make it simple for current contributors to understand what they are helping support and for new supporters to get involved,” Mizzou executive athletics director/chief revenue officer Blair DeBord said in a news release. “Whether someone is interested in traditional game-day elements like parking, ticket locations or postseason ticket priority or they are looking for unique, elevated VIP experiences or access, our new programs are designed to motivate current and future supporters to join our ‘Will to Win.’”
MU also stated that ticket renewal invoices for the 2025-26 athletic season, which will be sent digitally to donors in the near future, will show sizable increases in ticket price as well as priority donation for football and men’s basketball. The changed prices for football tickets were a possibility that Veatch mentioned to reporters during halftime of the Arkansas football game on Nov. 30.
“Really soon, within, I’d say, two to three weeks is probably a fair time frame,” Veatch said of when fans would find out about changed ticket prices. “Within the month of December, before the end of the year, we’ll be providing more personalized, detailed information to our fans, not only about how it will impact them directly, but also how we’re going to shift our overall fundraising operation.”
Ticket prices for men’s basketball games have not been announced yet.
The restructuring takes place amid a rapidly evolving college athletics landscape, where buying power continues to grow. For instance, in the past month, two elite high school recruits — Bryce Underwood, the top-ranked football prospect in the class of 2025, and AJ Dybantsa, the top-ranked basketball prospect in the class of 2026, according to 247 Sports — secured NIL packages totaling a reported (combined) $17-plus million from Michigan and BYU, respectively.
Mizzou is attempting to harness more of that buying power, which will involve more financial commitments from its supporters, something that Veatch is hopeful can happen.
“We understand we are asking a lot of you, and we do not take that for granted. We won’t be able to achieve consistent, high-level competitive success without you,” Veatch said. “If we continue to lock arms together and approach each day with a relentless will to win, there is one thing that’s for certain: Our best Mizzou moments and memories are ahead of us.”
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