Cougs to change name of football venue

In pro sports, it happens frequently.

But Washington State made an announcement Friday that will resonate in Pullman and college sports. The school is renaming its football venue.

Martin Stadium now will be called Gesa Field, the school announced, saying it has reached a 10-year agreement with Gesa (pronounced “GEESE-uh”) Credit Union that will add at least $11 million to WSU’s athletic coffers.

The deal, effective July 1, includes a distinctive way for fans to become donors. Members of Gesa Credit Union, based in Richland, can request a WSU-branded debit card that ponies up an unspecified donation to Cougar athletics with every swipe, or a credit card that does the same when the card is issued.

Since the hiring of Pat Chun as athletic director three years ago, WSU has revved up its search for new revenue sources. He inherited a budget deficit that had been projected to reach $85.1 million by 2022, and his plans for recovery have been severely undermined by the coronavirus pandemic.

Chun and WSU President Kirk Schulz have discussed the idea of field renaming from the start of the AD’s tenure, and negotiations with Gesa began 13 months ago, they said.

“We’ve had conversations with a multitude of potential sponsors, but none like Gesa, none as serious as Gesa,” Chun said in a Zoom news conference.

It’s the first time a Pac-12 school has renamed its football venue since Oregon State’s Parker Stadium became Reser Stadium in 1999. Before Utah joined the Pac-12 a decade ago, it tweaked the name of its venue from Rice Stadium to Rice-Eccles Stadium to honor a donor in 1997.

Only one other Pac-12 school, Oregon, has a stadium named after a donor. There are several elsewhere in the Power Five, but only about six are named after corporate sponsors. One of them, Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, is shared by the NFL’s Dolphins.

Gesa merged with Inspirus Credit Union two years ago and now is the second-largest credit union in Washington. It also sponsors Gesa Stadium, home of the Tri-City Dust Devils minor league baseball team in Richland, Wash.

Talks between WSU and the Gesa were complicated by the pandemic, but did involve an elaborate, socially distanced gathering on campus, officials said.

“Today really marks a major milestone in the 68-year history of our credit union,” Gesa president Don Miller said. “This partnership with WSU aligns with the values of what we at Gesa stand for. For decades, we’ve joined forces with educational institutions to promote learning and also to help grow and groom future leaders in our communities.”

The agreement includes the establishment of a student-operated Gesa branch in Pullman in September.

Washington State’s football venue has been known as Martin Stadium since its construction in 1972, when it replaced a fire-damaged Rogers Field. It was named after Clarence D. Martin, a former Washington governor whose son Dan contributed $250,000 to the project.

Chun and Schulz said the partnership with Gesa could lead to other sponsorship deals.

“What I’ve found in my experience as a president and working at several land-grant universities is, anytime you see a major investment like Gesa is making at WSU, what it does is it inspires others,” Schulz said.

The stadium’s first game with its new name will be Sept. 4 against Utah State. With the pandemic still gripping the globe, the Cougars don’t know how many spectators will be allowed for their seven home games in 2021 — a pivotal factor for WSU.

Gesa’s sponsorship is “going to be a new revenue line item for us, a critical one, as we try to go forward,” Chun said. “To have that revenue certainty over the next 10 years is important to Washington State and does provide a little bit of flexibility once we’re up and running. But really the biggest variable for us moving forward is going to be, ‘What does attendance look like in the fall for Washington State?’”

Dale Grummert may be contacted at daleg@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2290.