MU students call new Mizzou football ticket claim process ‘inconvenient’
Nia Hinson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
While the Mizzou Tigers look to kick off the start of the 2025-26 season on Thursday against Central Arkansas, some students are still hoping for a ticket. Much of that stress is thanks to a new ticket claim process Mizzou Athletics rolled out this year, students say.
“I was just like sitting in class, checking the page and checking the page and waiting to get the tickets…it was not convenient at all,” University of Missouri Senior Ethan McGinnis said.
McGinnis is a student who considers himself fortunate enough to receive a ticket using the new process. Mizzou Athletics announced the new claims process in May. It allows current and incoming MU students to pay $200 for Zou passes, allowing them the opportunity to land tickets to all Mizzou regular-season events, including football and basketball.
It’s also a process that now requires students to wait in a digital queue to score a ticket.
“They told us you can get your ticket at 10:00, but I jumped in at like 9:35 and it’s already an hour wait, I don’t know why it opened before 10:00, but it wasn’t very cool,” McGinnis said.
McGinnis said he waited in the queue for roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes, all while having to constantly double-check the page from class to ensure he was still in line.
Others, like freshman Tahlula Habedank, say they had an even more difficult time securing a ticket.
“It was very stressful and it was lagging all the time and kicking you out,” Habedank said. “I think I waited almost two hours or 1 hour and 45 minutes and I got kicked out [of the digital queue] twice.”
In an email sent to ABC 17 News Monday evening, Mizzou Associate Athletics Director David Matter said the university was anticipating long waits in the digital queue due to the increased demand for tickets this year.
“We wish we could accommodate everyone who wants to see the Tigers in person this year, however, the number of seats in Memorial Stadium simply can’t meet the incredible interest we are seeing from students and fans,” Matter said.
Matter said students claimed all of the available allotted tickets within hours. Students who purchased a Zou Pass will have the same opportunity for the Sept. 6 rivalry game versus Kansas.
The university is utilizing the digital queue for the first time this season. Students say they had to claim tickets for basketball games, but never ran into issues landing a ticket to see a game at Memorial Stadium.
MU Junior Tyler Holder said his friend waited in the queue for roughly three hours, only to not land a ticket. While Holder was able to claim his after a nearly two-hour wait, his frustrations over the new system remain.
“I think that if you’re paying for tickets, you should probably get a ticket for no matter what. Especially the football games, it’s like so big here,” Holder said. “I think they definitely need to give it an update or figure something better out.”
Holder said he thinks much of the increased demand could be due to an influx of students, saying it’s become harder and harder as the years go on to score a ticket. Preliminary numbers released by the university on Monday show an uptick in first-year students, with 6,000 first-year students enrolled for the school year.
Mizzou will host Central Arkansas in a sold-out stadium at Faurot Field on Thursday. Kick-off is at 6:30 p.m.