Oregon State, Washington State file complaint against Pac-12

Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff fields questions during the Pac-12 Conference.

By RALPH D. RUSSO

Associated Press

Sept. 8, 2023 1:57 PM PT

Oregon State and Washington State on Friday filed a complaint in Washington state court against the Pac-12 and Commissioner George Kliavkoff, seeking to prevent departing members from getting in the way of their efforts to rebuild the disintegrating conference.

The breach of bylaws complaint was filed in Whitman County. It requests a temporary restraining order that would keep departing members of the Pac-12 board of directors from meeting next week and taking any action regarding the status or governance of the conference, according to a news release from Oregon State and Washington State.

The Pac-12 declined request for comment through spokesman Andrew Walker.

The Pac-12 currently has 12 members, but 10 of them are leaving next year: USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon are leaving for the Big Ten; Stanford and Cal are leaving for the ACC; and Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are leaving for the Big 12. Each school has cited the desire for more financial stability in abandoning the “Conference of Champions,” and leaving only Oregon State and Washington State.

The two schools, which are seeking a declarative judgment from the court, said Kliavkoff recently asked members of the board to meet Wednesday to vote on a “go-forward governance approach.” Oregon State and Washington State contend that by announcing their intent to leave, the other schools forfeited a right to vote on conference matters.

“We owe it to our student-athletes, coaches, and fans to do everything in our power to protect the Pac-12 Conference and explore all future options,” Washington State President Kirk Schulz said. “WSU and OSU are working in lockstep to identify the best path forward. The future of the Pac-12 must be determined by the remaining members, not by those who are leaving.”

Officials from both schools have repeatedly said their first choice moving forward would be to preserve the Pac-12 brand and rebuild the conference. The filing said the departing members are incentivized to dissolve the conference, which would allow all the schools to split millions in remaining assets.

The filing refers to an email from earlier this month in which an unidentified representative of a departing school “threatened that the departing members of the conference were poised to take immediate action to seize control of the Pac-12.”

“It seems obvious that any 9 members can declare the fate of the conference at any time,” the representative wrote, according to the filing.

The court filing seeks to protect Oregon State and Washington State from that possibility. A hearing on their request is set for Monday.

Oregon State and Washington State likely are heading for some type of partnership with schools currently in the Mountain West, but how that works and what it might be called has yet to be determined, a person with direct knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press on Friday.

“Under what sort of banner, under what flag they play, that’s not clear yet,” said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the schools and Mountain West were not making their internal discussions public.

In an interview with the president of the students association this week, Oregon State President Jayathi Murth and athletic director Scott Barnes addressed the uncertain future of the school’s conference affiliation.

“We have a number of assets and status [in the Pac-12], I’ll call it, that is attractive to [potential] members that are out there. Particularly, those in our region,” Barnes said.

According to the filing, the Pac-12 ended fiscal year 2022 with $42.7 million in total net assets. The conference is estimated to have about $70 million in payments owed to it from NCAA men’s basketball tournament units. Those get paid out over six-year periods and are distributed to conference members.

The Pac-12 Network reported revenue of $117 million and operating expenses of $77 million in 2021-22, according the filing. The Pac-12 owes Comcast $50 million because of an overpayment to the Pac-12 Network, though the conference already agreed to have that debt absorbed by the full membership before the eight most-recent announced departures.

Barnes also mentioned the Pac-12’s status as one of five so-called autonomy conferences, which gives it certain voting privileges in NCAA governance and could provide two more years of large revenue shares from the College Football Playoff. It remains to be seen whether a rebuilt Pac-12 would retain A5 — or Power Five, as it is typically referred to — status.

“Those things bring a level of leverage in that regard,” Barnes said. “We have a number of schools out there wanting to align with us.”

Murthy acknowledged the school was considering working with other conferences.

“We’re looking at a number of options for partnering, merging and so on. Those options are going to emerge in the next few weeks as we figure out what the financials are and what it means to make one kid of arrangement or another,” Murthy said.

Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez has spoken cautiously in public about the conference’s next moves.

“The Mountain West is open to exploring all options that make us stronger,” she told AP recently.