MSU readies for first-ever bowl game as football revenue soars

An inaugural season as a member of a new athletic conference has led to another first for Missouri State University’s football team: a bowl game.

MSU is poised to play Dec. 18 in the inaugural Xbox Bowl against Arkansas State University.

Patrick Ransdell, MSU director of athletics, said the football team’s success comes as the program’s revenue surpassed $500,000 this year.

“On the records that I can find, that was the largest revenue year, at least in the past 10 years,” he said, noting revenues during most previous years in the decade ranged $200,000-$250,000. “We more than doubled what we did last year.”

Ransdell said its revenue increase was boosted by an all-time high in football season tickets. MSU sold 1,603 season tickets, surpassing the record total of 1,570 reached in 2007.

“It certainly exceeded my expectations, and judging by our increase in attendance, I think it surpassed the general public’s expectations,” he said of the football program’s first season in CUSA.

Home-game attendance this season averaged over 11,500, up roughly 20% from the more than 9,600 who attended games in the 2024 season. Seating capacity at Robert W. Plaster Stadium is 17,500.

“That’s a huge step for us because that was one of the things that was pretty apparent when I got here was that we really needed to get football attendance in a good spot,” said Ransdell, who began his role at MSU in 2024. “So, I thought this year was a good first step.”

Still, Ransdell told SBJ earlier this year that season ticket and attendance figures will need to continue rising in future seasons: “We need to have season tickets well over 3,500, 4,000,” Ransdell said in August. “We need to have revenue that closes in on $1 million in the next couple of years.”

The nationally televised bowl game on ESPN2 is scheduled to be played at the 12,000-seat Ford Center, which is part of The Star in Frisco, Texas. The Star serves as the world headquarters and training facility of the Dallas Cowboys.

The Bears are 7-5 in their first season with Conference USA and as part of the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. MSU had petitioned the NCAA for a postseason waiver on behalf of its football program, and multiple Missouri politicians had lobbied for inclusion, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. The school was previously ineligible amid a transition to the FBS from the Football Championship Subdivision but received a bowl bid after the 41-game bowl season fell short of two eligible teams, classified as those with six or more wins.

Ransdell said the athletics department budget is now around $35 million, up from $31 million the prior fiscal year. MSU officials previously said the university expected to spend an additional $5 million annually as part of its new conference. Funding is going toward scholarships, personnel, travel and student-athlete funding, and MSU expects to offset the new expenses through additional revenue.

Additional revenue from CUSA will likely be distributed when athletics officials attend the conference’s annual meeting in the spring, Ransdell said. Both MSU and CUSA fiscal years end in June, he said, adding he should have a better idea in late spring on what the conference distribution will look like.

Athletic collaborations
Great Southern Bank Arena is the home for both of MSU’s basketball programs, and the Springfield-based banking company donated $5.5 million in 2022 for the facility’s naming rights, according to past reporting.

Stacy Fender, vice president and director of communications and marketing at Great Southern Bank, said the company has been a sponsor of MSU athletics for decades.

“The company considers it really just a worthwhile investment in both the university and the community at large,” Fender said. “Great Southern has a long tradition of giving back to the community, and the university is just kind of part of that.”

Great Southern Bank has a primary athletic sponsorship arrangement that largely focuses on football and basketball but also includes baseball and volleyball, Fender said. That’s in addition to a separate agreement in support of hockey and dance teams. She declined to disclose financial details of the agreements.

Fender said the main agreement includes components such as signage, radio advertising, in-venue announcements, prize giveaways and tickets, both for suites and general admission seating.

“We like to share those with customers and with our employees and often with not-for-profits in the community and things of that nature,” she said of tickets.

Additionally, the bank provides donations to nonprofits through MSU. For example, Fender said the bank donates $5 per tackle in football and $5 per assist in basketball. That led to a $4,500 donation earlier this year for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Springfield and $7,500 to the Foundation for Springfield Public Schools.

Dickerson Park Zoo takes more of a hands-on approach to its sponsorship agreement with MSU. Joey Powell, public relations and marketing director for the zoo and Friends of the Zoo, said the organization has been an athletic supporter since 2021.

“I didn’t think that I could afford doing anything with MSU, but I really wanted to for two reasons. One, just in sharing the zoo message, I wanted to get it in front of a younger audience,” she said, declining to disclose terms of the three-year contract with MSU. “And then on the other side of it, the patrons, the people that go to the games, that’s our demographic as well.”

Powell said the zoo has volunteers who bring animals and serve as educators at the BearFest Village tailgates during the football season, while at basketball games it has commercials that play in the arena. Longtime Bears announcer Art Haines voices the ads, some of which feature the Bears’ mascot, Boomer.

“That was the big selling point to me because I wanted people to look up on that really nice digital screen during ballgames and see the zoo,” she said.

Neither Fender nor Powell said they’ve been approached for additional sponsorship opportunities connected with MSU’s Dec. 18 bowl game.

National stage
Ransdell said as MSU makes final preparations in the days leading up to the bowl game, he feels good about its current and future sponsorship opportunities.

“I certainly anticipate corporate sponsorships to increase, especially with our visibility that we’ve gotten this year, both regionally and nationally, and the fact that we’ve got so many more eyeballs,” he said. “I think we’re certainly a more attractive partner for corporate entities throughout our region.”

While Ransdell estimates the bowl game will cost “a few hundred thousand dollars,” he said CUSA has a bowl reimbursement policy.

“So, they will reimburse most of the travel, most of the hotel rooms, food, things of that nature,” he said.

MSU officials said last year that attorney and alum Tom Strong’s $5 million donation helped the school make the move to CUSA. Strong said the university’s membership in the conference is paying dividends beyond his early expectations.

In taking that step, he said MSU is becoming more known on a national stage. Its national television exposure will equate to six games counting the Xbox Bowl, officials say.

“That notoriety will help our athletics, but it will also help every phase of what Missouri State University is doing,” Strong said. “We will not realize all that it will bring to Missouri State for a number of years, but in retrospect, we will see that we have taken a giant leap forward.”