PULLMAN, WA – The recent implosion of the historic Pac-12 Conference is adding another sharp blow to the beleaguered economy of the college town of Pullman.

Pullman is the home of Washington State University, and the loss of its historic football rivals led to depressed attendance at football home games in the 2024 season. The loss was particularly acute because many out-of-town fans who stay in hotels and patronize restaurants and souvenir shops chose not to attend games against unfamiliar opponents like Hawaii and Wyoming.

“I saw a decrease in sales,” said Kelly Otto, manager of Crimson & Gray, a large store stocked with Washington State clothing and other souvenirs. “People weren’t into traveling to town for our home games.”

He noted there were no sellouts at Martin Stadium last season, and that the game against well-known Texas Tech produced the most sales for the store.

“We are very sports-oriented,” said Otto, whose family has owned the store since 2015. “The rest of the year is hit-and-miss.”

Bob Cady is owner of The Coug, an iconic bar located in the midst of WSU’s sprawling campus that for 92 years has drawn large crowds on football game days.

“There were fewer alumni in town,” Cady said. “It’s pretty rare to see the alumni section of the football stadium only half full.”

Washington State averaged 28,000 home fans a game during the 2023 football season, the last featuring old Pac-12 rivals like Arizona, Stanford and Colorado at home.

In 2024, home attendance fell to just 22,000 per game in 33,000-seat Martin Stadium.

Only Washington State and Oregon State remain in the conference, as the other 10 schools leaped to other conferences offering more lucrative television revenue.

The 2024 football schedule was filled with the likes of San Jose State, Hawaii, Utah State and Wyoming, under a short-term scheduling agreement with the Mountain West Conference.

The Pac-12 eventually poached five Mountain West schools, and they will join the conference in the 2026 season. In 2025, Washington State and Oregon State will play each other twice to help fill out their schedules, which consist otherwise of mostly random matchups. The Cougars will host future Pac-12 conference member San Diego State for their Homecoming game, and will likely have at least one sellout in 2025, as the Apple Cup matchup with University of Washington is in Pullman this year.

Pullman has about 35,000 residents, and the loss of the historic Pac-12 rivalries is not the only reason that Pullman’s economy has felt battered lately, said Marie Dymkoski, executive director of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce.

Enrollment at Washington State used to stand at about 20,000 for years. But the COVID-19 pandemic prompted many students to drop out and stay home, Dymkoski said.

The pandemic, along with a nationwide decline in college enrollments and more students taking classes online, has dropped Washington State’s headcount to just under 17,000.

The decline of that many students also battered Pullman’s economy, Dymkoski said.

“That’s almost an entire freshman class of students down,” Cady noted.

A retail vacancy sign outside a storefront window displaying the Washington State Cougars logo on Main St. in downtown Pullman on Friday. Businesses in Pullman have reported economic difficulty since the NCAA Pac-12 Conference was reduced to two schools. (Ted S. Warren for Cascade PBS)

Dymkoski also noted that the cancellation of several home football games and graduation ceremonies during the height of the pandemic was a big killer of business.

A third factor is Pullman’s location just eight miles west of the college town of Moscow, Idaho, Dymkoski said.

Idaho has much lower sales taxes and less onerous business regulations, and has always had a much more vibrant business community than Pullman, Dymkoski said.

Moscow, despite a smaller population, is home to big-box stores and national retailers, while Pullman’s business community is mostly local establishments, she said.

“Our people go over there to shop,” Dymkoski said. But Moscow residents see little reason to cross the border to Pullman to spend money, she said.

She says it doesn’t look like that trend will change much in the future.

The Pac-12 is adding Utah State, Fresno State, Boise State, Colorado State and San Diego State as football members. Those schools are much more aligned with Washington State’s size and academic mission than the old members of the Pac-12, many of which were larger schools with more emphasis on athletics. But it’s not clear how well the new teams will draw.

The Pac-12 is also adding powerhouse Gonzaga in basketball, but the Bulldogs do not have a football program. The conference will have to add one more football-playing school to become eligible for a spot in the FBS playoffs, and is eyeing Texas State and UNLV.

Cady noted that business problems in Pullman run deep, and heaps much of the blame on Washington State’s administration.

While The Coug is a small establishment and doesn’t have much trouble filling up, other businesses such as hotels face much bigger challenges, Cady said.

“It’s harder to justify spending $450 a night for a hotel room when the stadium is half full,” Cady said. “It was noticeable this year.”

He believes Washington State officials made a mistake last season by focusing promotions on who the Cougars were playing, rather than on the team’s stellar performance when they opened with an 8-1 record.

When the Cougars suffered some late losses to bad teams, attendance plummeted, said Cady, who has owned The Coug for 20 years.

“We need good energy to lure alumni back,” Cady said.

There is optimism that Washington State’s huge and prosperous alumni base, many of whom live 300 miles west in the Seattle metropolitan area, can be lured back to Pullman, Cady said.

“It’s not like the overall product is so substantially different,” Cady said. “We’ll be fine in the long run.”

Attendance at football home games averaged around 30,000 fans per game while Mike Leach was head coach, 2012-2019. Some hotels in Pullman resorted to a lottery system for rooms, because demand was so strong. That was not the case last season.

“We’re not full,” Dymkoski said. “It’s the same in restaurants.”

Several restaurants have recently closed in Pullman, she said.

“There will be more losses before this is over,” she said.

“We need to do a better job to get people to shop local,” she said. “It’s frustrating.”

But she is optimistic about this fall’s football season, which will see Idaho, San Diego State, Washington, Louisiana Tech, Toledo and Oregon State in Pullman.

“We will persevere and get through it,” she said. “I am very optimistic.”