(10-27-2023 09:55 AM)solohawks Wrote:  They got info they liked in discovery that gives them what they fill like is a binding precedent to now petition for control over the whole board

What discovery? They already knew what would come out in discovery and the likely outcome b/c all remaining schools were involved in stripping USCLA and CU of their voting rights. The only reason that Kliavkoff has decided to change how he interprets the guidelines now is that he wants to get paid as long as possible. They can't fire him if they don't control the conference and he's siding with 10 departing schools.

(10-27-2023 08:26 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  It's a battle for money. Everything is a fight for leverage not consistency.

There will be a settlement. This started almost two months ago and it's going to drag on for many more months. OSU and WSU are in a strange way far more time crunched that the departing schools, who are perfectly happy to let this drag out for one or two years without resolution.

I actually think we are approaching the abyss for these two schools in football with the transfer portal opening in 5 or 6 weeks. The exodus will be ruinous for them. It also will destroy their high school recruiting class. Pressure will come from the football coaches to get some clarity quickly. IMO OSU will be more responsive and more willing to broker a deal than WSU. I look for that to happen in a couple weeks.

Actually, if WOSU are expecting to lose out on the CFP money anyway, they can drag it out indefinitely and then sue the departing schools for damages from their departures. I'm pretty hard headed, so I'd drag things out just out of spite, but these schools are staring at an 80% drop in athletic revenues starting on Aug 2, 2024. They're desperate like a cornered animal, and they're fighting for their lives. The departing schools? They're fighting for first class upgrades for the ball team for PSU and Rutgers next year.

(10-28-2023 10:26 AM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 05:57 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 12:07 PM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 02:10 AM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  "The future of the Pac-12 should be decided by the schools that stay, not those that leave."

I think that summarizes the OSU/WSU position pretty neatly. And I'll be surprised if the court doesn't agree.

As the bylaws are weakly worded, probably depends upon whether they took votes to strip USCLA/Co of their voting rights or not. If they set that precedent, yet failed to make/pass such a motion when UW/UO/UU/ASU/AZ announced their exit (b/c 4 to 5), and later when Calford announced it's exit (then 2 to 7), WOSU may be up **** creek w/o a paddle (7/9>3/4).

When GK asked Shultz to call the meeting of the board to discuss staff retention, he refused, which seems ludicrous if he thinks there are legally only two board members. We just don't know enough, although I would gander to say if such voting precedent wasn't set they likely have an extremely good chance of the court agreeing.

Eh - that’s a bit of a misinterpretation. GK was saying that he had no position on whether the departing members still had votes on the Board and that the schools should just hammer it out, which was effectively GK giving the leverage all to the departing schools.

I have a hard time believing that anyone is naive enough after witnessing what we’ve seen in conference realignment over the past 20 years that the departing members would just vote on some administrative staff payment matters and not, you know, vote themselves to take $100 million-plus in future conference revenue out the door with them.

I don’t believe that this was a matter that could just be “talked out” before the lawyers got involved (and I say that as a lawyer that always pushes clients to talk it out before lawyers get involved). There is no reason for the departing members to claim that they have votes outside of screwing WSU and OSU even further. Plus, it’s not as if though the departing members were going to ask WSU and OSU whether they still had their votes - the departing members knew the only chance that they had at all to get their votes recognized was to call a meeting over the objections of WSU and OSU. On the flip side, WSU and OSU even acknowledging any hint that the departing members could still have votes by having a discussion would severely damage the negotiating position of WSU and OSU.

In theory, if the departing members had approached WSU and OSU and said, “We agree that we will have votes solely for administrative matters of the conference for 2023-24 and cannot have any vote about dissolution or any matter beyond 2023-24,” then sure, the parties could have talked it out. I have very little faith that this was at all what the departing members were seeking or else it would have been settled by now.

There was no reason for Shultz not to call a board meeting consisting of WOSU to retain conference staff, if they are the two remaining voting parties, unless if they wish to screw over the conference staff. Would you stick around if you strongly doubted your job would be there in 6 or 7 months?

So are WOSU wishing to screw over conference employees (doubtful), or do seven other schools still have voting rights b/c the established process for stripping them was not practicible? The latter possibility would explain GK's position that he had no opinion on who had votes. If those seven schools do still legally have votes, it is in their interests to dissolve and they should.

We can feel sorry for WOSU and want them to retain the CFP/NCAAT money as a parting gift, but also recognize that they've been subsidized by other members since conferences took over media rights in the 80s and contributed very little to the credits they might inherit. This would be far less an issue if the NCAA hadn't changed rules when the MWC split from the WAC.

Screw over the Conference staff? EVERYBODY should get fired, immediately. Maybe keep some IT people, a couple accounts payable and accounting staff. If the "150-200" people that Kliavkoff claims are really still getting paid their full salaries today, they have to know that won't last long and are currently updating resumes/job hunting. No, there's just one person Kliavkoff is worried about, because that one person bears so much of the blame for the demise of the Pac that he can't find a new job.

(10-28-2023 02:07 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  What discovery?

The PAC office, as well as certain departing schools, may have not released, beforehand, materials helpful to the PAC-2's case. So the discovery period's teeth can be helpful, and seems to have in this case reaffirmed what most of us speculated on here.

(10-28-2023 02:12 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  Actually, if WOSU are expecting to lose out on the CFP money anyway, they can drag it out indefinitely and then sue the departing schools for damages from their departures.

If the PAC-2's ultimate goal is the Big XII, they should emulate us.

First, or whenever the chance comes up: Beat OU.

Sue only if absolutely necessary, if the other side won't work a reasonable exit-details' deal.

(10-28-2023 02:26 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(10-28-2023 10:26 AM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 05:57 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 12:07 PM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 02:10 AM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  "The future of the Pac-12 should be decided by the schools that stay, not those that leave."

I think that summarizes the OSU/WSU position pretty neatly. And I'll be surprised if the court doesn't agree.

As the bylaws are weakly worded, probably depends upon whether they took votes to strip USCLA/Co of their voting rights or not. If they set that precedent, yet failed to make/pass such a motion when UW/UO/UU/ASU/AZ announced their exit (b/c 4 to 5), and later when Calford announced it's exit (then 2 to 7), WOSU may be up **** creek w/o a paddle (7/9>3/4).

When GK asked Shultz to call the meeting of the board to discuss staff retention, he refused, which seems ludicrous if he thinks there are legally only two board members. We just don't know enough, although I would gander to say if such voting precedent wasn't set they likely have an extremely good chance of the court agreeing.

Eh - that’s a bit of a misinterpretation. GK was saying that he had no position on whether the departing members still had votes on the Board and that the schools should just hammer it out, which was effectively GK giving the leverage all to the departing schools.

I have a hard time believing that anyone is naive enough after witnessing what we’ve seen in conference realignment over the past 20 years that the departing members would just vote on some administrative staff payment matters and not, you know, vote themselves to take $100 million-plus in future conference revenue out the door with them.

I don’t believe that this was a matter that could just be “talked out” before the lawyers got involved (and I say that as a lawyer that always pushes clients to talk it out before lawyers get involved). There is no reason for the departing members to claim that they have votes outside of screwing WSU and OSU even further. Plus, it’s not as if though the departing members were going to ask WSU and OSU whether they still had their votes - the departing members knew the only chance that they had at all to get their votes recognized was to call a meeting over the objections of WSU and OSU. On the flip side, WSU and OSU even acknowledging any hint that the departing members could still have votes by having a discussion would severely damage the negotiating position of WSU and OSU.

In theory, if the departing members had approached WSU and OSU and said, “We agree that we will have votes solely for administrative matters of the conference for 2023-24 and cannot have any vote about dissolution or any matter beyond 2023-24,” then sure, the parties could have talked it out. I have very little faith that this was at all what the departing members were seeking or else it would have been settled by now.

There was no reason for Shultz not to call a board meeting consisting of WOSU to retain conference staff, if they are the two remaining voting parties, unless if they wish to screw over the conference staff. Would you stick around if you strongly doubted your job would be there in 6 or 7 months?

So are WOSU wishing to screw over conference employees (doubtful), or do seven other schools still have voting rights b/c the established process for stripping them was not practicible? The latter possibility would explain GK's position that he had no opinion on who had votes. If those seven schools do still legally have votes, it is in their interests to dissolve and they should.

We can feel sorry for WOSU and want them to retain the CFP/NCAAT money as a parting gift, but also recognize that they've been subsidized by other members since conferences took over media rights in the 80s and contributed very little to the credits they might inherit. This would be far less an issue if the NCAA hadn't changed rules when the MWC split from the WAC.

Screw over the Conference staff? EVERYBODY should get fired, immediately. Maybe keep some IT people, a couple accounts payable and accounting staff. If the "150-200" people that Kliavkoff claims are really still getting paid their full salaries today, they have to know that won't last long and are currently updating resumes/job hunting. No, there's just one person Kliavkoff is worried about, because that one person bears so much of the blame for the demise of the Pac that he can't find a new job.

You keep putting blame on one person instead of on the multiple leaders at each Conference school. Give it up.

(10-27-2023 09:27 AM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 09:12 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 06:47 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Methinks WS and OS got themselves into a pickle, in that IIRC a court had said the PAC Board couldn't meet without unanimous consent. Now trying to undo that. This filing is IMO another sign that time is not on their side.

We'll see.

Of course OSU/WSU were the only ones who created these circumstances with their lawsuit. As I pointed out at the time it creates a lot of problems. People should talk instead of letting lawyers gum up the works.

"...The OSU/WSU joint statement added: "The Pac-12 cannot continue to be paralyzed at such a critical time. We did not create or seek these circumstances, but OSU and WSU will continue to take whatever actions are necessary to protect our universities, ensure accountability and transparency, safeguard student-athletes and the Pac-12 Conference, while preserving our options moving forward. The future of the Pac-12 should be decided by the schools that stay, not those that leave....""

Come on. GK had scheduled a board meeting the following week, suddenly reversing the precedent that departing members don't have seats on the board which was consistent with their bylaws. WSU/OSU couldn't allow that to happen and had to go to court to block it.

Agreed. Timely to the season, it was like the dead walked again, as schools who made the decision to leave over a year ago are now suddenly back at the table and given a vote. That's a big "nope." And the judge at the initial injunction appeared to call it straight out, too. Where self-interest only seems to matter, the intent of the ten and conference administration is so obvious and ridiculous. For OSU and WSU not to get a little litigious about this all, it may almost be them failing to meet their fiduciary duties. Going to court to stop it all is about as clear-cut as it gets.

quo vadis Wrote:IMO, a fair settlement would be (a) guarantee the departing schools their full normal conference payout for 2023-2024, what they would have received had they never announced they were leaving, minus whatever is being withheld by the media company for the overpayment, and (b) WS and OS gain control of the Board and all other PAC assets.

I think (a) is the core of the fight. At the very least, I hope the Comcast fiasco is taken out on all twelve of them equally, but, I wouldn't be surprised if the brunt of it is taken out on only the ten. Or, OSU and WSU attempt to have those ten cover the cost.

Stugray2 Wrote:I actually think we are approaching the abyss for these two schools in football with the transfer portal opening in 5 or 6 weeks. The exodus will be ruinous for them. It also will destroy their high school recruiting class. Pressure will come from the football coaches to get some clarity quickly. IMO OSU will be more responsive and more willing to broker a deal than WSU. I look for that to happen in a couple weeks.

Clarity on the matter or no, I think the recruiting hits are inevitable. I have had this feeling watching the two of them this season thinking this may be the last time in the foreseeable future they'll be this good in football where they can consistently hang with and definitively beat major programs. Even if the PAC lives on and somehow retains major status, it won't matter for these two.

(10-28-2023 01:38 PM)PlayBall! Wrote:  

(10-28-2023 10:26 AM)gwelymernans Wrote:  There was no reason for Shultz not to call a board meeting consisting of WOSU to retain conference staff, if they are the two remaining voting parties, unless if they wish to screw over the conference staff. Would you stick around if you strongly doubted your job would be there in 6 or 7 months?

I'd assume they are good jobs, at least through the FB and BB seasons of this year. So, if I were one of the non C-suite employees, I would keep the pay coming in while looking to secure a job for ~April or soon after.

Most C-suiters should (or already would have, if the PAC10gone/GK had all bowed-out gracefully) head for the door as soon as the acquisition of the MW is known (PAC office and retained staff likely will move to the MW's). I'd guess the PAC's SF folk want to stay local.

When a company is in a wind-down situation but still needs to keep daily operations going for the next several months (as is the case with the Pac-12), it’s common to offer a retention bonus (e.g. we give you a 50% retention bonus if you’re still employed at the Pac-12 as of 8/1/2024). Otherwise, the entity is going to lose pretty everyone of any value when it still needs to run a conference championship game, conference tournaments, finance and accounting functions, etc. It’s not so much the C-suiters, but all of the downstream workers that keep the operations of the league running. So, I do think that is a practical issue that needs to be addressed. However, I have zero faith that this is why the departing members still want to have a vote.

(10-28-2023 01:59 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-28-2023 10:26 AM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 05:57 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 12:07 PM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 02:10 AM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  "The future of the Pac-12 should be decided by the schools that stay, not those that leave."

I think that summarizes the OSU/WSU position pretty neatly. And I'll be surprised if the court doesn't agree.

As the bylaws are weakly worded, probably depends upon whether they took votes to strip USCLA/Co of their voting rights or not. If they set that precedent, yet failed to make/pass such a motion when UW/UO/UU/ASU/AZ announced their exit (b/c 4 to 5), and later when Calford announced it's exit (then 2 to 7), WOSU may be up **** creek w/o a paddle (7/9>3/4).

When GK asked Shultz to call the meeting of the board to discuss staff retention, he refused, which seems ludicrous if he thinks there are legally only two board members. We just don't know enough, although I would gander to say if such voting precedent wasn't set they likely have an extremely good chance of the court agreeing.

Eh - that’s a bit of a misinterpretation. GK was saying that he had no position on whether the departing members still had votes on the Board and that the schools should just hammer it out, which was effectively GK giving the leverage all to the departing schools.

I have a hard time believing that anyone is naive enough after witnessing what we’ve seen in conference realignment over the past 20 years that the departing members would just vote on some administrative staff payment matters and not, you know, vote themselves to take $100 million-plus in future conference revenue out the door with them.

I don’t believe that this was a matter that could just be “talked out” before the lawyers got involved (and I say that as a lawyer that always pushes clients to talk it out before lawyers get involved). There is no reason for the departing members to claim that they have votes outside of screwing WSU and OSU even further. Plus, it’s not as if though the departing members were going to ask WSU and OSU whether they still had their votes - the departing members knew the only chance that they had at all to get their votes recognized was to call a meeting over the objections of WSU and OSU. On the flip side, WSU and OSU even acknowledging any hint that the departing members could still have votes by having a discussion would severely damage the negotiating position of WSU and OSU.

In theory, if the departing members had approached WSU and OSU and said, “We agree that we will have votes solely for administrative matters of the conference for 2023-24 and cannot have any vote about dissolution or any matter beyond 2023-24,” then sure, the parties could have talked it out. I have very little faith that this was at all what the departing members were seeking or else it would have been settled by now.

There was no reason for Shultz not to call a board meeting consisting of WOSU to retain conference staff, if they are the two remaining voting parties, unless if they wish to screw over the conference staff. Would you stick around if you strongly doubted your job would be there in 6 or 7 months?

So are WOSU wishing to screw over conference employees (doubtful), or do seven other schools still have voting rights b/c the established process for stripping them was not practicible? The latter possibility would explain GK's position that he had no opinion on who had votes. If those seven schools do still legally have votes, it is in their interests to dissolve and they should.

We can feel sorry for WOSU and want them to retain the CFP/NCAAT money as a parting gift, but also recognize that they've been subsidized by other members since conferences took over media rights in the 80s and contributed very little to the credits they might inherit. This would be far less an issue if the NCAA hadn't changed rules when the MWC split from the WAC.

Whether the other schools subsidized WOSU isn’t relevant. Virtually every conference realignment move of any value for the past 20-plus years has involved more valuable schools leaving and, in each case, those more valuable schools had to leave behind their future conference distributions.

Ultimately, it comes down to the wording of the bylaws being poorly constructed that leaves a little bit of ambiguity that the departing schools may still have voting rights. However, the way that the Pac-12 (and every other conference that has had departing members for the past couple of decades) has approached these situations has been that schools lose their voting rights upon an announcement of departure (not just when they actually depart). The departing schools are trying to do a post-hoc reversal of their interpretation of the bylaws where they applied it one way to USC, UCLA and even Colorado, but now trying to argue the other way when it’s applied to them. I don’t think that’s going to fly in court. Now, it’s not a 100% slam dunk for WOSU (as I’ve noted that the bylaw language is poorly drafted which gives the departing schools a potential argument), but it’s more likely than not that they’d prevail.

We have never had a situation where only 2 schools were left. Even with the Big East there were 10 schools left who agreed to split two ways.

(10-28-2023 02:26 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(10-28-2023 10:26 AM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 05:57 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 12:07 PM)gwelymernans Wrote:  

(10-27-2023 02:10 AM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  "The future of the Pac-12 should be decided by the schools that stay, not those that leave."

I think that summarizes the OSU/WSU position pretty neatly. And I'll be surprised if the court doesn't agree.

As the bylaws are weakly worded, probably depends upon whether they took votes to strip USCLA/Co of their voting rights or not. If they set that precedent, yet failed to make/pass such a motion when UW/UO/UU/ASU/AZ announced their exit (b/c 4 to 5), and later when Calford announced it's exit (then 2 to 7), WOSU may be up **** creek w/o a paddle (7/9>3/4).

When GK asked Shultz to call the meeting of the board to discuss staff retention, he refused, which seems ludicrous if he thinks there are legally only two board members. We just don't know enough, although I would gander to say if such voting precedent wasn't set they likely have an extremely good chance of the court agreeing.

Eh - that’s a bit of a misinterpretation. GK was saying that he had no position on whether the departing members still had votes on the Board and that the schools should just hammer it out, which was effectively GK giving the leverage all to the departing schools.

I have a hard time believing that anyone is naive enough after witnessing what we’ve seen in conference realignment over the past 20 years that the departing members would just vote on some administrative staff payment matters and not, you know, vote themselves to take $100 million-plus in future conference revenue out the door with them.

I don’t believe that this was a matter that could just be “talked out” before the lawyers got involved (and I say that as a lawyer that always pushes clients to talk it out before lawyers get involved). There is no reason for the departing members to claim that they have votes outside of screwing WSU and OSU even further. Plus, it’s not as if though the departing members were going to ask WSU and OSU whether they still had their votes - the departing members knew the only chance that they had at all to get their votes recognized was to call a meeting over the objections of WSU and OSU. On the flip side, WSU and OSU even acknowledging any hint that the departing members could still have votes by having a discussion would severely damage the negotiating position of WSU and OSU.

In theory, if the departing members had approached WSU and OSU and said, “We agree that we will have votes solely for administrative matters of the conference for 2023-24 and cannot have any vote about dissolution or any matter beyond 2023-24,” then sure, the parties could have talked it out. I have very little faith that this was at all what the departing members were seeking or else it would have been settled by now.

There was no reason for Shultz not to call a board meeting consisting of WOSU to retain conference staff, if they are the two remaining voting parties, unless if they wish to screw over the conference staff. Would you stick around if you strongly doubted your job would be there in 6 or 7 months?

So are WOSU wishing to screw over conference employees (doubtful), or do seven other schools still have voting rights b/c the established process for stripping them was not practicible? The latter possibility would explain GK's position that he had no opinion on who had votes. If those seven schools do still legally have votes, it is in their interests to dissolve and they should.

We can feel sorry for WOSU and want them to retain the CFP/NCAAT money as a parting gift, but also recognize that they've been subsidized by other members since conferences took over media rights in the 80s and contributed very little to the credits they might inherit. This would be far less an issue if the NCAA hadn't changed rules when the MWC split from the WAC.

Screw over the Conference staff? EVERYBODY should get fired, immediately. Maybe keep some IT people, a couple accounts payable and accounting staff. If the "150-200" people that Kliavkoff claims are really still getting paid their full salaries today, they have to know that won't last long and are currently updating resumes/job hunting. No, there's just one person Kliavkoff is worried about, because that one person bears so much of the blame for the demise of the Pac that he can't find a new job.

I can tell a lot of you have never worked for a company being acquired.

This is the month, IIARC. What are the key dates for ruling(s) and court sessions?

Other conferences are announcing their 2024 FB schedules already. It's time for the judge to move things along so that the PAC-2+MW can proceed without further harmful interference. That's assuming the PAC-2 agrees, now, to distributing this year's PAC-12's earnings, less its debts, at the end of this fiscal year (by ~9/1/24) to all the 2023 membership.