With the adjustment to a revenue-sharing model of athlete compensation coming in the next couple of months, Missouri has been talking about changes to the Tiger Scholarship Fund for a while now without really laying out any of the specifics.

More specifics have come this week.

The first change is the name itself. Starting on Jan. 1, the Tiger Scholarship Fund will become the Mizzou Athletics Fund.

“We are on a mission to deliver consistent, high-level winning programs like our fans have never experienced before,” Missouri athletic director Laird Veatch said. “As college athletics prepares to enter the revenue-sharing era, we have been laser focused on finding ways to elevate Mizzou’s position and capitalize on the opportunities in front of us. As part of our fundraising restructuring efforts, renaming the Tiger Scholarship Fund the Mizzou Athletics Fund will more accurately reflect how donors already contribute to much more than scholarships. At the same time, we will simplify our giving programs to more clearly align our donor benefits with the contributions that will be so vital to our sustained competitive success.”

The university claims the Mizzou Athletic Fund will go to three main pillars.

Game day priority: providing fans priority access to the seating and parking options they desire.

The Mizzou leadership circle: which will “recognize and steward our top donors who give above and beyond seat-related donations and joining will unlock additional stewardship opportunities such as VIP events, team travel and special access.”

And The Mizzou legacy societies: which will “recognize lifetime philanthropic support of Mizzou Athletics.”

“The Mizzou Athletics Fund is designed to make it simple for current contributors to understand what they are helping support and for new supporters to get involved,” Missouri Executive Athletics Director/Chief Revenue Office Blair DeBord said. “Whether someone is interested in traditional game-day elements like parking, ticket locations or postseason ticket priority, or they are looking for unique, elevated VIP experiences or access, our new programs are designed to motivate current and future supporters to join our ‘Will to Win.’”

Part of the change will also include “significant” ticket price and priority donation increases for football and a separate priority donation for men’s basketball. Men’s basketball ticket prices for the 2025-26 season will be announced at a later date.

Missouri says Mizzou Athletics Fund and ticket office representatives will reach out individually to donors and season ticket holders once renewals are live to discuss and answer questions.

“For all of us in college athletics, we are shifting into even more of a semi-professionalized model where we have the opportunity to compensate student-athletes directly,” Veatch said on the Mizzou storytellers podcast. “Being in the most competitive conference in the country, that means we have to do it at the highest possible levels. There’s not this opportunity for us to sort of ease our way into that process. We have to go all-in to compete. To secure the top talent, to compete for championships, to do the things we want to do.

“At the same time … we are behind our peers in terms of the revenue that we generate, particularly associated with football. That’s not just within the SEC, but includes regional peers, the Kansas State’s, the Oklahoma State’s, both in what we price for football ticket sales and just our overall approach on how we fundraise.”

In total revenue, Mizzou sits 14th in the SEC, just ahead of the Mississippi schools and well short of the SEC average and that’s with a steep rise in the past four years that has driven Mizzou up from the bottom of the conference to just behind Arkansas as of 2022 reported revenues.

“Average donation and tickets compared to our peers, we are less than half of what the average is in the conference,” Veatch said. “And there’s a lot of reasons for that, it’s been 12 years since we’ve raised ticket prices and you can understand that with what we’ve gone through and where we’ve been, but we can’t rely on that position.”

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