Fans almost sold out Memorial Stadium to watch the Tigers take on the Bulldogs

Tickets at MU’s box office nearly sold out before Saturday’s home game against Georgia.

Memorial Stadium was just 1800 people shy of capacity Saturday, but the stadium can hold 10,000 less people than it could last year because of the south end zone construction.

Mizzou said there were 58,284 people at the game. All the people inside Memorial Stadium Saturday could fill about 4 Mizzou Arenas.

“It’s great to see all the people in the seats.” Tiger fan Eric LePage said. He noticed more fans at Saturday’s game than in games past, although he was not too excited about the ending. “It was really cool to see everyone come out and everyone was really fired up hoping to shock the world but…..” he said.

The last home game two weekends ago against Wyoming saw about 8,000 less fans.

The box office only had tickets for the hill left over before Saturday’s game, which cost around $40. During the Wyoming game and the season opener, tickets for the hill were around $20, making the Georgia v. MU game the most expensive game at Memorial Stadium this season so far.

UM leaders have previously said the success of the sports teams help with enrollment numbers. On Friday, Mizzou said freshman enrollment is up 13 percent since last year.

MU leaders also said this week its no accident the enrollment numbers are up. The ad agency it hired, 160 over 90, helped with MU’s advertising to boost the enrollment numbers.

“I’m really pleased with the efforts of our communications and marketing team to be able to target our advertisement marketing to gain the interest,” UM President Mun Choi said at the UM Board of Curators meeting Thursday.

MU also has advertisement spots playing during SEC games.

UM Board of Curators Chairman David Steelman told ABC 17 News in a 2017 interview that “the success of our sports teams is going to matter. So there are things we have to do to drive enrollment which will drive the revenue better.”

During a press conference Friday after the board of curators meeting, Steelman said he was happy with the progress that’s been made.

“Mizzou is back,” Steelman declared.

Students also agree.

“Putting a spotlight on the athletics will definitely will draw attention from a more national perspective,” LePage said.

He also said having a game on television like Saturday’s game and “through their marketing efforts, you get a lot more spotlight and people will think, ‘oh, I’ve seen them for football, I saw them in basketball, why not go take a tour?’ I think it’s been working,” LePage said.

Jacob Stewart, junior at MU, just transferred from Lindenwood University in St. Charles. He said he wanted to transfer to a bigger school and MU’s higher enrollment rates and advertising efforts, “made the switch more attractive, so I decided to transfer over.”

“Having a better football team, having a better basketball team will attract a lot more attention here and attract a lot more people wanting to come to school here or transfer over.”