Pourover: How far behind is Mizzou Baseball?

In last weeks Pourover we were reacting to the news of Steve Bieser being fired. The discussion was about whether Mizzou could become a baseball school or not. For years we’ve known the commitment hasn’t been there.

Opposing fanbases, players, and coaches would tell you as much. The commitment isn’t there because Mizzou and Taylor Stadium are not like the other baseball facilities. So far behind there was a twitter thread recently which accentuated the point:

If you’re on Twitter the thread is a good one and worth clicking through. The summary though is this:

In all, 13/14 SEC members have made a $25m + investment since 2009, with 10 doing so in the past 5 years.

Guess who is the 14th member?

That’s right! Your Missouri Tigers!

The odd things is that both Matt Watkins and I had the same thought at nearly the same time. “Let’s go to ope.ed.gov and download some spreadsheets!” Specifically the last five years of spending and revenue for each of the SEC schools and it wasn’t pretty.

These are the totals over the last five years. If you sort each team and each season, and then sort by the largest sum of money spent to the smallest you end up with 70 different seasons. The final five spots, all fives seasons of the data pulled, belong to Missouri. The most money Missouri has spent on their program was this past season when they had $2,587,723 in expenditures.

There were also just 7 other seasons of teams spending less than $3 million. All from either Tennessee, Georgia, or Kentucky. Georgia spent $3.5 million last season and fired their coach. Kentucky spent $3.2 million last season, but also just spent $50 million on Kentucky Proud Park which is one of the nation’s best. Tennessee meanwhile has upped their spending to $6.2 million with Tony Vitello, and they’re spending over $50 million on upgrades to their existing stadium.

So anyone who was in the neighborhood of the Tigers has since moved out of that neighborhood.

So the question of how far behind is Mizzou Baseball?

Very.

In football, Mizzou has made themselves competitive in spending. They’re not in the middle of the league, but they’re within a few million of South Carolina and Kentucky. And a few million when you’re spending over $30 million is much different than a few million when you’re spending $2.5. In basketball it’s even better. The Tigers have slotted themselves into the middle of the SEC.

And with both the NIL efforts have helped bolster each roster. The foundation there is committed. The feeling seems to be to keep football competitive, invest in basketball because there’s inroads there, and at the moment it’s to just let baseball flounder.

The next move will tell us what Mizzou Baseball wants to be. There are enough big money former players who want to see the University invest, and Desiree Reed-Francois has proven to date she’s an aggressive Athletic Director and willing to be bold. Will that entail a deeper investment into baseball?

Obviously time will tell. The budgets at Missouri are tighter than other places in the league. The question may not come down to what Mizzou wants to spend but what Mizzou can spend?