LARAMIE — Tickets for Wyoming’s season opener against Missouri are still available.
Based on the numbers, it might be that way until the teams kick it off Aug. 31 at War Memorial Stadium. But Wyoming isn’t giving up on a sellout for what’s by far its most attractive non-conference opponent this fall.
“I’d say right now we’re tracking a little bit short of the game being sold out,” said Joe Verschueren, the school’s associate athletic director for ticketing and sales. “I think the game will be near capacity. We already have a number of sections sold out, and it’s just been getting busier and busier as the game’s been getting closer.”
As of Tuesday night, the school had sold more than 20,000 tickets for the opener, which Verschueren said factored in the average number of Wyoming students that usually attend home games. Instead of buying tickets, Verschueren said students pay a fee toward an athletics package as part of their tuition each semester that gives them access to a mobile app used to gain admittance. Wyoming has a little more than 6,000 seats allotted for students.
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The number of tickets Wyoming has sold so far is less than the 24,131 that attended the Cowboys’ home opener last season against another Power Five opponent, Washington State, but Verschueren said the school has sold more tickets for the Missouri game than it had for Washington State at this time a year ago. War Memorial Stadium has 28,937 seats available for each game.
“We’re sort of in between where the Oregon game was a couple of years ago and the Washington State game from last year,” Verschueren said. “So if you were to compare this to the Washington State game last year, which is kind of a barometer we’ve been going off here in the ticket office, we’re about 2,000 tickets overall ahead of that game from where we were at the same time last year.”
As is usually the case, tickets are becoming a hotter commodity the closer the game gets. Verschueren said the school sold more than 500 tickets last week and, as of Tuesday night, had already sold more than 300 this week.
Missouri has sold the majority of its allotted 1,900 visitors’ tickets, which include tickets for players’ family members. Missouri fans have purchased approximately 1,000 more tickets through Wyoming’s ticket office, Verschueren said.
The goal is to get every ticket sold, though that might be a stretch at this point. At the least, Verschueren said he expects attendance to surpass the Washington State game, which drew the highest home attendance last season. Missouri, which has Clemson transfer Kelly Bryant at quarterback, will be just the second SEC team to ever play at War Memorial Stadium (Ole Miss in 2004).
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“It’s going to take a big push from our fans here in the last couple of weeks leading up to the game, but it’s still possible,” Verschueren said. “At this point, based on how many tickets we have been selling each week, it looks like we might not get all the way there, but either way, we’re definitely looking at a big crowd for that game.”
As for season tickets, Verschueren said more than 8,100 of those have been sold. The school sold 8,800 season tickets last year.
“Over the next couple of weeks, we’re hoping to get really close to that number,” Verschueren said. “That’s another goal we’ve still got to reach here before that Missouri game.”
