Dave Matter brings you the latest updates from the Mizzou sports scene.

Mizzou men's basketball coach Dennis Gates, left, and athletic director Desiree Reed Francois take part in the “Come Home Tour” stop Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at the St. Louis Music Park in Maryland Heights. 

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Before Desireé Reed-Francois could act, she promised to listen.

Shortly after she was hired last summer, Missouri’s new athletics director couldn’t address her department’s most glaring issues without listening to her constituents.

A year ago, Reed-Francois stepped into a severely understaffed department operating at a budget deficit for a fifth straight year. The school’s two major-revenue programs hadn’t experienced sustained success in nearly a decade. Ticket sales for both football and men’s basketball had plummeted.

She had to ask why before she could create solutions.

“When we first got here, I wanted to focus on listening and learning and getting to know our people and then start to lay the foundation for what the culture would be,” she said this week. “Then the strategies would come.”

In her Mizzou Arena office, Reed-Francois visited with the Post-Dispatch for a lengthy interview this week, reflecting on her first year in Columbia and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Year 1 was about rearranging the furniture — literally, in the case of her office, where she’s replaced an enormous boardroom table with a more inviting bright gold couch for her visitors.

Internally, Reed-Francois made sweeping changes across the department, overhauling her senior staff with newcomers to Mizzou. Several longtime administrators are gone. Tim Hickman retired — he planned to step down before former AD Jim Sterk was forced out — while Sarah Reesman was replaced and moved into a new role at MU’s law school.

When Reed-Francois arrived, the department was 30% understaffed, she said. Some staffers were let go. Others left on their own. Naturally, for some, morale plunged.

“Change can be challenging to a team that was already doing two jobs per person,” she said. “And then all of a sudden, you have change in leadership. That’s challenging. You have a pandemic. That’s challenging. So I wanted to make sure I listened. But we have clear-cut expectations. We gave folks opportunities, but in the end, we have to do what’s right for Mizzou. And we have to build a high-performing culture.”

As of last week, MU’s department was 84% fully staffed to its pre-pandemic numbers, she said. She’s also hired three new head coaches: Dennis Gates (men’s basketball), Lindsey Anderson (cross country) and Caroline Westrup (women’s golf).

Next, Reed-Francois had to address sagging ticket sales, particularly in football. It’s why she distributed surveys to fans and season ticket holders last year to learn how MU could enhance the game-day experience. When fans visit Memorial Stadium for Thursday’s season opener, they’ll notice several changes, each one addressing results of those surveys:

• MU purchased 76 new self-service ticket scanner pedestals to cut down on long lines to enter the stadium.

• To shorten concession lines, fans can now order grab-and-go food and beverages that will be stored in lockers inside the stadium.

• The stadium will feature private nursing stations and stroller parking.

• There will be less advertising signage on the video board and around the stadium.

• Students will have expanded block seating sections and a first-ever students-only tailgating area outside the stadium. Last month, she hired a staffer from Duke University for a newly created position, student engagement coordinator, to focus solely on marketing students to attend more sporting events.

“Students bring energy, and energy attracts energy, right?” she said. “We are pouring into the students because bringing students back has been a high priority.”

Another major change: The visiting team’s block of tickets will no longer be directly behind the visitor’s sideline and instead moves to the corner sections of the stadium. That means no more giant swath of orange at the 50-yard line when Tennessee visits, like Reed-Francois saw at her first home SEC game last season.

“I’m looking across the 50 and I see one particular color standing out, and I was like, ‘We need to move this. We need to fix this,’” she said. “People were like, ‘Oh, it’s the SEC rule.’ No, that’s not the SEC rule. ... I’m also a lawyer, and details are critically important.”

She heard another common plea from the fans.

“We heard from our fans they wanted a night game,” she said.

The Tigers have hosted just one prime-time game the past two seasons but seven 11 a.m. games. Typically, the schools are at the mercy of the TV networks to decide kickoff times. This season’s opener was scheduled at Middle Tennessee State. Instead, Reed-Francois lobbied the SEC to find a way to secure a Thursday night home game. With the help of ESPN and the conference office, Mizzou finagled a six-team swap that sends Louisiana Tech to Columbia for a 7 p.m. kickoff on ESPNU.

Those are the outside-the-box strategies she believes Mizzou must make to compete in the SEC.

“We have to be innovative,” she said. “Alabama’s budget is about $189 million. Texas is about $200 million. They’re coming (to the SEC). Oklahoma is coming. We’re in the bottom three in terms of budget. We’re in the bottom three in terms of total number of (Tiger Scholarship Fund) donors. Season tickets, we’re in the bottom three. We’ve got to be different. …. We’re not going to outspend. So, how do we take the resources we have and be innovative and outwork people?”

Mizzou athletics spent just less than $114 million in the 2021 fiscal year.

There is some promising news on football ticket sales. For the first time since 2016, Mizzou has sold more season tickets than the previous season. As of Thursday, MU had sold 18,786 non-student season tickets and 6,638 student season tickets for a total of 25,424, surpassing last year’s total of 25,355.

Reed-Francois described her relationship with third-year football coach Eli Drinkwitz as “a great partnership.”

“We want to keep investing in football,” she said. “We’ve done that. We’ve provided some opportunities for him to hire additional analysts and recruiting staff members. That was a priority.”

“We need football to be successful,” she added. “Our whole governance process is based on football. This is the Southeastern Conference. It doesn’t get any more competitive. But I really appreciate his partnership.”

How does Reed-Francois define success in football? The Tigers have gone 5-5 and 6-7 in two seasons under Drinkwitz.

“An upward trajectory,” she said. “There’s no magic number. I don’t believe in that. I think you look at programs and you look at them holistically. You look at their trajectory and their pattern.”

Reed-Francois pays careful attention to the Learfield Director’s Cup standings, which measure on-field performance for Division I programs across all sports. Mizzou finished 2021-22 at No. 57, its lowest finish in more than 20 years. One of her chief goals is to finish in the top 25 within the next five years, she said.

“We can’t control every outcome, but we’re in a results-driven industry,” she said. “We’re in the most competitive conference in the entire country. Yes, this is a process. But yes, this is also a results enterprise.”

There are other horizons to explore. At the request of the athletes, she’s upgraded MU’s nutrition services, hired more nutrition experts and partnered with MU’s School of Social Work to provide athletes with more mental health resources. She wants the department to fully invest in sports science and analytics to study hydration levels and sleep patterns. MU has launched a master plan to upgrade facilities for multiple sports.

As for the name, image and likeness movement, Reed-Francois and MU lobbied the state legislature to amend the state’s NIL law to allow school officials and coaches more involvement with the booster-led NIL collectives. The new law goes into effect Sunday. She’s hired former football player Brandon Lee to serve as the department’s NIL point person.

“We’re going to be very competitive in that (NIL) space,” she said, “but we’re not going to be crazy.”

On Reed-Francois’ wall there’s a framed map of the state of Missouri with silver pushpins poked into every county she’s visited over the last 12 months. This summer she attended 20 of MU’s 24 “Come Home Tour” caravan stops around the state. In the last year, she’s made 63 speeches to various organizations at events around the state and the local community.

The tour underscored that her charge transcends serving Mizzou’s 550 athletes. It’s about reconnecting those fans who have lost touch with Mizzou. From St. Louis to Kansas City, from Palmyra to West Plains, she listened and learned.

“It really struck me during the caravan how our purpose is bigger than just representing our athletic department and building our athletic department,” she said. “We have an opportunity to bring people back and bring people together.”

Dave Matter brings you the latest updates from the Mizzou sports scene.

Dave Matter is the Mizzou beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

The Tigers held an hour-long open walk-through practice on Saturday to simulate their season-opening game.

Saturday's open practice revealed a glimpse at Eli Drinkwitz's starting lineups for the Sept. 1 opener against Louisiana Tech.

With a mix of veterans and underclassmen, wideout figures to be the Tigers' strength when the season kicks off.

The Tigers' new-look defense under coordinator Blake Baker will be on display with Saturday night's public practice at Memorial Stadium.

Four offensive, four defensive players voted team captains for Tigers' 2022 season.

Here are five things to know about Blake Baker, the Missouri football defensive coordinator and former Tulane football player. 

Tennessee Vols football head coach Josh Heupel says he's more competitive than UT Vols baseball head coach Tony Vitello. 

The Missouri Tigers men's basketball opens its first season under coach Dennis Gates vs. Southern Indiana on Nov. 7, also host national champ Kansas. 

Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Dave Matter in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Mizzou men's basketball coach Dennis Gates, left, and athletic director Desiree Reed Francois take part in the “Come Home Tour” stop Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at the St. Louis Music Park in Maryland Heights. 

Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.