Athletic Department Targets 2012 for Memorial Stadium Seating Additions

Earlier today, Hank Koebler featured an article in The Columbia Missourian that revealed that the athletic department wants to add outdoor club seats to Memorial Stadium.

"Tim Hickman, MU’s associate athletic director for operations, said the idea is to build a structure above the stands on the east side of the stadium that includes premium outdoor club seats. Although the exact size is yet to be determined, it will roughly mirror the press box and suites on the west side.“One of our next phases — and we did this with the arena, and we did this when we built the press box — is to hire a marketing consultant to help us determine the market, both from a standpoint of demand and pricing,” Hickman said. “So it could depend on that. We could have the option to do it anywhere from two to four levels, depending on where we think demand will be, and anywhere from 1,200 to 2,500 seats.”Hickman said there is untapped demand for outdoor club seats. MU currently offers two varieties of indoor premium seats — 20-person private suites and the communal club seats of the Tiger Lounge. Club seats currently cost $425 for a season ticket. In the outdoor version, fans can go inside to get food and drinks and come outside to watch the game."

It seems as though this addition of seats will lead fans to believe that a larger seating addition is in the works sometime in the future as well. After all, Memorial Stadium currently sits at 10th in capacity in the 14-team SEC, and many feel as though the transition to a new conference will automatically result in an upgrade to the stadium.

However, expect the athletic department to be reluctant to make this change. The only game the Tigers have sold out this season was the 100th Homecoming Game against Iowa State, and there have been loads of empty seats even in conference games against ranked opponents in Oklahoma State and Texas.

Plus, it’s not like the Tigers play in a venue like Baylor’s Floyd Casey Stadium, which only holds 50,000. It is more important to sell out games and create an intimidating atmosphere than impress SEC officials with a massive capacity. So would Mizzou fans rather have a two-thirds filled “Bryant-Denny Stadium of the Midwest”, or a spirited atmosphere that is enhanced by the team’s change in conference? Hopefully, it’s the latter.