Mizzou polls students on potential ticketing changes for football season in 2026
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- Mizzou surveyed students on multiple ticket distribution models for 2026 season
- Proposals include lotteries, priority sales via loyalty points, partial season packages
- University signals end of guaranteed Zou Pass football tickets despite hillside return
The University of Missouri continues to search for the best way to allot football tickets to students who purchase passes to Mizzou Tigers sporting events.
The passes are known as “Zou Passes.” The university took students’ temperatures on a few different options for next season in a survey sent out on Wednesday.
Among the proposed processes were:
• A lottery each home game week, with priority based on loyalty points accumulated by attending other Mizzou sporting events. Students only pay for games to which they receive a ticket.
• A select number of returning students can purchase a full football season ticket. Newcomers have the opportunity to pick from two different packages of games, which would likely include three games each.
• A random football ticket lottery each home game week, similar to the process this season, where students pay a set price to access the lottery.
• Full football season tickets are only available for a select number of students to purchase, based on loyalty points accumulated by attending other Mizzou sporting events during the previous school year. Partial season packages are available for anyone not able to buy the full season ticket.
• All students, regardless of class or loyalty points, have the chance to purchase one of two different packages of games, which again would likely include three games each.
• An in-person queue at the ticket office early on Mondays of home game weeks. Students only pay for games they receive a ticket to.
Mizzou also asked if students would be likely to sit in the third deck if the entire student section was full, and also if they were in favor of decreasing students’ lottery odds if they don’t use awarded tickets to previous games.
For the first time this year, Zou Pass holders didn’t automatically get tickets to every football game. That was likely a result of both a record-setting freshman class and the North End Zone project taking away all-purpose seating on the Rock M hillside.
To begin the football season, Mizzou’s system of distributing tickets was a first-come first-serve queue which began at 10 a.m. of game weeks. However, the rigid timing and occasional glitches of the queue were criticized by students and professors alike.
MU then moved to a lottery system after the first two weeks that students could enter at any time Monday, and students learned if they received a ticket Wednesday.
Even with limited hillside seating expected to return for the 2026 season, MU is making it clear to students that the days of guaranteed football tickets with the Zou Pass are over. The lottery, or some sort of distribution process, will remain next year.
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