Following years of accommodation outcries, Washington State University offered camping sites for football fanatics. Only a handful showed up.

Washington State University tried something new last weekend for the 2025 football season kickoff, but it doesn’t seem to have caught on among the Cougar faithful.

Fans have complained for years that one of the largest obstacles keeping them from attending sporting events was the lack of accommodations in Pullman, and how much those hotel rooms cost when there are vacancies.

The cost of a room in Pullman at the roughly 10 hotels and motels in town typically ranges from around $80 per night to just shy of $140 on any given non-event weekday, but those prices can more than triple by the weekend. Nightly rates for the upcoming matchup with San Diego State University this weekend, for example, range from $280 to $460 per room as of Wednesday. Those prices can climb even higher for marquee games such as the Apple Cup.

Tim Braun, business manager for the Pullman Chamber of Commerce, said it’s a common complaint. At the height of WSU football attendance during the late Mike Leach’s tenure as head coach, some of the hotels implemented a lottery system for rooms, as reported by CascadePBS.

“There are so few beds for such a large population that these football games attract,” Braun said.

WSU Athletics heard fans on the accommodation front, said Associate Athletic Director Matt Zollinger in an interview last week. That’s why they offered up nearly 100 spots directly on campus for fans to pitch a tent and spend last Friday and Saturday night “Camping with the Cougs,” as the event was nicknamed.

At $250, tickets for the event included a site for up to four people, a dedicated parking space and access to some nearby porta potties.

“As we took a look at fan feedback and things that were hard for fans, kind of pinch points for them, accommodations in Pullman was one of them,” Zollinger said. “And with the need to drive more revenue, this is sort of an idea we thought about trying out and seeing how it would go.”

The Idaho matchup attracted more than 28,000 fans to Martin Stadium – the second largest home opener in the last seven years. But only a handful opted to camp next door at Mooberry Track. Just two tents remained Sunday morning.

Sheree Furtado loves the Cougs, she said, as she packed up her tent and belongings on Sunday for her short drive home to Moscow. She’s a football season ticket holder, travels to as many basketball games as she can and is a proud 1968 graduate, as is her daughter, Adriana Furtado, who now works as a veterinary resident at the university’s veterinary teaching hospital.

“My granddaughter even went to preschool here,” Furtado said. “Hopefully, she’ll go here too.”

Furtado and her daughter spent the weekend together on the grass surrounding the Mooberry Track, one of two locations offered to campers as part of the event with the other being a small turf field off Grimes Way. There were six tents around the track when Furtado arrived, which was whittled down to just two Saturday ahead of kickoff, she said.

“We got here bright and early,” Furtado said. “I couldn’t wait to see the band, football players and kind of see how everything was going.”

The low turnout for the campout was a surprise, but Furtado and her daughter enjoyed the experience nonetheless. They got to spend some quality time together, revel in the Cougar spirit and wander just a few hundred feet to their accommodations after the game.

“Plus we won last night, so how bad could it be?” Furtado said.

She’s not sure if it was the temperatures in the upper 90s, the smoke hanging in the air or the cost that kept the crowds away, but Furtado said she’d like the university to give the camping experience another try in the years to come.

For the next go-round, Furtado said she’d like to see the bathrooms moved closer to the camping area. Breakfast on Saturday and Sunday morning would also be a welcome addition, she added.

“It’s Labor Day weekend, tomorrow’s a holiday, so everything just worked out perfect,” Furtado said. “Coug spirit all the way.”

Zollinger said the athletics department is always trying to find ways to meet the needs of their fans. “Camping with the Cougs” was part of a slate of changes to the fan experience this year, which include the return of the First Down Friday street fair in downtown Pullman the day before home games. The fair last Friday was the first since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Braun said the Chamber of Commerce was happy to partner with the city and the university to bring some of the football hullabaloo to downtown businesses, and that he expects it to make a difference for Pullman’s economy and sense of community in the long run. He would not be surprised to see camping options return as part of the push to bring people to town between the three entities.

“There’s some fresh blood about WSU wanting to get more interaction and having, especially the parents and family, staying longer, doing more things,” Braun said.

Braun said encouraging longer stays also benefits public safety in the region; roads are less crowded and there will be fewer fans still tipsy from tailgating attempting to drive home.

“I think that’s going to be really good for everyone around here, and also help the state patrol and the county sheriffs and whoever else gets involved with the traffic,” Braun said.

While Zollinger did not return requests for comment following the Camping with the Cougs event, he shared last week that the campout does have potential to become “a little bit of a tradition at WSU.” The university and his department saw last weekend as a trial run to learn from and improve upon, he said.

“This is something that’s new to us, and so part of that is it’s new to the fans as well, and so we got to continue to educate them on what this is, and what it can be,” Zollinger said.

The accommodation woes in Pullman will likely continue as the university enters into a new era of athletics in the rebuilt Pac-12 Conference during the 2025-2026 school year. WSU’s peers in the conference are regional, which will likely mean more visiting fans than the past two years that featured contests with a smattering of schools across the country to field a schedule.

A local crackdown on vacation rentals through platforms like Air BnB may also complicate the accommodation situation. In May, the Pullman City Council enacted new restrictions on vacation rentals that include occupancy limits and requirements for operators to have business licenses, pay an initial application fee of $200 and an emergency evacuation plan approved by the city.

As of mid-August, nearly 60 vacation rentals were considered illegal under the new policies, as reported by Pullman Radio News. Those operators have until Jan. 1 to come into compliance or they could face a recurring fine of $250 per day.

Zollinger said last week that regardless of the camping turnout, the department will continue to find creative ways to improve the gameday experience for fans. He understands that hotels may price some out of being able to attend, particularly when the alternative for many fans would be to “drive four, five hours each way, but you have to do it all in one day.”

“We’re trying to show our fans, ‘Hey, we heard you,” Zollinger said. ” … We’re trying to find ways to help them.”