Mizzou acted quickly when the SEC announced a rule change that allows member schools to expand their courtside seating options, and on Oct. 23, the Tigers debuted baseline courtside seating. To do so, the Mizzou student section was pushed back multiple rows, prompting backlash from fans.
According to the Columbia Missourian, less than two weeks after introducing the courtside seating, Mizzou has walked back the seating change.
“We’ve heard your feedback about how the new courtside seating has affected the student section,” athletic director Laird Veatch wrote in a post on X. “It was clear the configuration needed to improve, and we had to do better.”
Student-athletes, alumni and current students all criticized the seating changes, noting that it would “limit the home-court advantage,” and “raise [the student section] further off the ground.”
Mizzou athletics met with student section leaders, Zou Crew, and agreed to reverse course before the first men’s basketball home game of the season. Now, along with some courtside seating for premium ticket holders, the Mizzou student section has additional space without seating to increase the capacity of the student section.
“It looks a lot better,” Camden Millheiser, Zou Crew’s president, said. “They added two new rows that don’t have specific seats, so we can pack a ton of students in. We still aren’t as close as we used to be, but we understand that Mizzou is trying to find ways to raise revenue in this environment.”
The Tigers were not the only SEC school to pounce on the new courtside seating guidelines. Both Vanderbilt and Mississippi State made similar seating upgrades in their arenas, and all of these programs have done so with an eye toward revenue generation.
“Today’s reality is a need to generate significant revenue to reinvest in our programs through talent acquisition and retention,” Veatch wrote.
To that end, Mizzou estimated that the additional courtside seats could generate over $100,000 in revenue and limit the student section from rushing the court at the same time, which could save the Tigers hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from the SEC.
