Parking and Tailgating:

I think we all know this is a nightmare.

My suggestions:

1. Reserve lots A, B, and C for donors (basically the lots immediately around the stadium). Make everything else strictly first come, first serve starting Friday at 8pm.

2. Open up all of the currently closed lots (like reactor).

3. Get rid of the ridiculous drinking policies, at least on the university-controlled areas. Columbia's open container rules are medieval. Let people have fun.

4. Suspend towing/ticketing of parked cars on gameday weekends until at least noon on Sunday.

5. Increase the number of shuttles running from downtown to the stadium. More people running back and forth between these areas are more dollars being spent at the university and at the restaurants, bars, and hotels downtown. We have one of the better downtown/bar districts of any power five school, and we are really failing to bridge the gap from downtown to our tailgating scene on game day. At one point, there was talk about doing an open container area on Ninth Street for gameday. Of course, it didn't materialize because it would've been too much fun.

Ticket Prices:

The cheapest non-general admission tickets are $45.00 face value on the upper-east side. If you want to sit in the lower bowls: $85.00. We are barely getting 40,000 people to attend our games. Lower the ticket prices, you greedy shitbags. Why can I attend a Kansas City Chiefs, Sporting KC, or Kansas City Royals game for less money than a (pitiful) amateur game? And at those professional venues, I can park where I want, drink a beer where I want without feeling like I'm about to get tackled and arrested, and they are two hours closer to my house.

Game Atmosphere:

Which leads to my next point. The gameday atmosphere compared to most of our conference-brethren is pretty anemic.

1. More funding for our band/increase the size. They are notably worse than most of the other SEC bands.

2. Stop the gimmicky fake tradition bullshite, the obnoxiously loud sound effects, and cheesy hype-man commentating between plays. It feels like an MLS stadium pretending to be an old European club.

3. Invest some money to improve stadium accommodations for the other 95% of us. We've dumped $200+ million into Faurot since joining the SEC, but almost no improvements have been made to the main concourses or bleachers. It's well past time to improve the stadium quality for the folks who can't afford (or choose not to) donate $50k+ per year to the university.

Lodging:

We need more lodging near the stadium/campus. This has improved, but there are still far too few places to stay if you are trying to come in for the weekend. It's just another reason why folks aren't coming in from KC and STL for a weekend. The City of Columbia and/or the University need to push to incentivize further development of hotels near campus. Maybe the university itself should consider building one (or more). Look at what modern pro sports venues are doing with the campuses they are building around stadiums. There are a number of sad buildings on the northern fringe of campus that are ripe for a teardown. Or, sacrifice the aging and increasingly sad Hearnes Center to such a project.

It's time for Mizzou to stop making gameday the least fun thing to do in the SEC. For some arbitrary reason, the university decided long ago that having too festive a gameday is bad for Mizzou's image and prestige. I have news: it doesn't matter, and in fact, the university has thrived during periods when Mizzou football was humming (look at application numbers during the height of Pinkel's run). Why did we join the SEC if we're not going to embrace football being a large part of the school's identity?