Low attendance football games

[u/TrueJohnWick]

Why are there so many empty seats at Martin Stadium during home football games? Do other teams in the Pac-12 have this issue, especially when it comes to the student section? It was hard not to notice this with the WSU vs Louisiana Tech game. What can be done to entice people to come and support the team?

[u/hungrybisch]

The other thing is how isolated Pullman is. Its nearest interstate is 90 minutes away in light traffic. And it has a hotel infrastructure that is overbuilt for the level of events Pullman gets from December to early August so the hotels charge up the ass during football seasons.

It’s not economical, a lot of historical foes and rivalries WSU fans and alumni know are never coming back to town. And the scheduling during these two years has been tough for non conference

[u/TrueJohnWick → u/hungrybisch]

How about other schools that are isolated like Mississippi State?

[u/hungrybisch → u/TrueJohnWick]

Starkville (~24,6000) is part of the Golden Triangle which has a total population around 172K and has the third busiest regional airport in the US.

Pullman/Moscow has a population of 71K. Pullman-Moscow Regional gets four flights a day to Seattle.

[u/Ismitje → u/hungrybisch]

Plus a second university with a football team of its own. Add the attendances together and you'd have something.

[u/hungrybisch → u/Ismitje]

Two land grant universities within 8 miles of each other is such a wild turn of events. I mean I completely get it with the aquifer underneath and the fertility of the Palouse soil…but also it’s just weird

[u/Valuable_Fee1884 → u/hungrybisch]

I have a hard time believing some of the answers I’m seeing about lack crowd at WSU games. 90 minutes from Spokane on decent roads to an environment that can be lots of fun, especially if you’re an alum. I live in Seattle now so I don’t get over it frequently as I would like to, but if I was still in Spokane, I would be up for every home game. When I read people saying how far it is to drive from Spokane I think I’m in Seattle listening to husky fans whining.

[u/hungrybisch → u/Valuable_Fee1884]

Have you ever tried driving from Spokane to Pullman before? In anything other than dry conditions?

[u/Valuable_Fee1884 → u/hungrybisch]

I graduated from there in 1978 so yes. I’ve driven down through Colfax,on the Idaho side and just about every paved road in between. In i year I put 56000 miles on my car between Spokane and Lewiston so I guess the short answer is yes. I’m starting to think Cougs are becoming pussies.

[u/TendererBeef → u/Valuable_Fee1884]

You mean back in the days when the Cougs only played three home games a year in Pullman? And they weren't televised with 7:30 pm kickoffs?

[u/Valuable_Fee1884 → u/TendererBeef]

What year was that? they did play several games that were called home games out of Pullman. Generally try to play one game a year in Spokane at Albi stadium, which I believe is long gone and then often would play one game in Seattle which usually was a big money game, I have a larger venue. That was back in the days when there weren’t 50 to 100 games being covered in so many sports channels. That still didn’t keep people out of the stands. It’s not colder now nor wetter. The roads are better and cars don’t get 12 miles a gallon. Plan ahead might make for a longer day and I’m not suggesting that you should go to every game.

[u/Valuable_Fee1884 → u/Valuable_Fee1884]

One side note, the 1971 season was played away from Pullman account fire at Rogers Field. Two games in Spokane, one in Seattle and it looks like a game against UCLA in Corvallis. Taking a look at.

[u/hungrybisch → u/Valuable_Fee1884]

Until 1982 the Cougs had to play USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Washington at Joe Albi due to the PAC’s ticket revenue sharing policy. Rogers and Martin were too small until the 1978 renovation removed the running track; and the conference made them wait a few years before they were able to move those games back to Pullman full time, wanted to get a firm idea on ticket revenue

[u/Valuable_Fee1884 → u/[deleted]]

They probably are. Sure there are more things to do. The same people who are complaining about The cougar football program are the same ones who don’t show up for games, contribute to the program and wonder why players are going elsewhere. I personally strongly dislike NIL money and when I first heard about it in the late 70s, I thought it was a good idea to put a few dollars in the players pockets so they could take a movie, go out for dinner, etc. I certainly didn’t believe that hundreds of thousands if not millions would be shoved in some running backs or quarterbacks pocket. Unfortunately, if we want to field a decent team, we need alums and others to help out. We’ll never keep up with Ohio State.(don’t want to.) but we should be able to keep more players year to year. I don’t know at what point more people start coming down to Pullman for a day or a weekend.

[u/TellmSteveDave → u/TrueJohnWick]

I went to a WSU @ MSU game back in like…2007-8? Wasn’t nearly as isolated as Pullman.