The PAC 10 expansion groundswell

[myboynoah]

lol

What about all that unity that we kept hearing about?

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[Moliere]

lol

What about all that unity that we kept hearing about?

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Lack of consummation really hurt the unity

[Pelado]

Lack of consummation really hurt the unity

As is the case for many relationships.

[Jeff Lebowski]

WSU/OSU file suit against Kliakoff and the P12.

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[Moliere]

they should sue their own university presidents.

[Jeff Lebowski]

they should sue their own university presidents.

Or Larry Scott.

amirite, applejack?

[Jeff Lebowski]

OMG. Someone check on AppleJack. Utah killed the P12!

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The $50 million counteroffer, some sources say, was shaped heavily by input from one particular university president — a Pac-12 board member who others say consulted with a campus professor to come up with the valuation.

Is that accurate?

If so, who is that president? And how did he/she arrive at $50 million per school?

It’s been the subject of a lot of discussion. I confirmed the identity of that president this week and reached him on the phone. He agreed to provide a written statement.

There were a line of mistakes made by the Pac-12 Conference. Too many to count. The purpose of this piece isn’t to dredge up the past, point fingers and blame any single individual for the downfall of the 108-year-old conference. Rather, there’s an in-depth study to be done and much to be learned from strategic miscues and failures of leadership.

That president was Taylor Randall, from the University of Utah.

[myboynoah]

$50 million per school. $60 thousand dollar trucks.

The uofutah must be outsourcing its business analytics and valuation courses to Trump University.

[Moliere]

Utah’s business school sucks and this is just more confirmation that it sucks. The accountants we hired from that school (very few, thankfully) were always ranked on the bottom at my firm.

[Green Monstah]

Utah had an inflated view of itself and the PAC-12? You don’t say.

[myboynoah]

I think he misspoke. Should be overpayment "from." Otherwise, WSU/OSU are in the money.

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[Pelado]

I saw this over at the Mountain West message board. This is the PDF of the response from OSU/WSU to the motions to dismiss their lawsuit filed by the Pac-12 conference and UW:

https://www.mwcboard.com/application...23d2555c7d4f90

A few snippets:

For more than a year after University of California, Los Angeles (“UCLA”) and University of Southern California (“USC”) announced their departures from the Pac-12, the Conference Defendants agreed that UCLA and USC had delivered notices of withdrawal and been automatically removed from the Board. During the same time period, all the departing schools, including UW, agreed with or acquiesced to the Conference’s interpretation of the Bylaws. Within the past few months, Commissioner Kliavkoff submitted multiple sworn declarations to other courts confirming this as well. It was only once the other schools announced their departures that the Conference Defendants—and UW and the other departing schools—reversed their position.

Commissioner Kliavkoff also submitted at least two sworn declarations to other courts confirming that UCLA’s and USC’s representatives had been removed from the Board. On April 28, 2023, the Commissioner submitted a sworn declaration to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, declaring:

The Board of Directors is the governing body of the [Pac-12] Conference. Each member institution of the Conference has one representative on the Board which shall be the President [or Chancellor] of that member institution, except … as to USC and UCLA who were removed as Board representatives under the Constitution and Bylaws following their notice of withdrawal from the Pac-12.

Both the Conference and the departing schools expressed the opposite view of the Bylaws. In an email on September 6, 2023, in response to Presidents Schulz and Murthy’s September 6, 2023, letter, one representative from a departing Pac-12 member wrote: “It seems obvious that any 9 Members can declare the fate of the Conference at any time.” Gose Decl. ¶ 20. And the Commissioner wrote on September 8 that President Schulz and Murthy’s “suggestion that ten of the Conference’s 12 members have ‘withdrawn’ from the Conference within the meaning of the Bylaws is mistaken.” Letter from G. Kliavkoff to K. Schulz and J. Murthy (Sept. 8, 2023), at 1. The Commissioner’s letter did not provide any explanation or justification for the reversal in position from the prior letters to each of UCLA, USC, and CU, or his sworn declarations to the Northern District of California and California Superior Court.

On October 9, 2023, without conferring with WSU and OSU, UW filed a motion to intervene, attaching a proposed motion to dismiss. UW’s Mot. to Intervene, Ex. C. The Conference Defendants also filed a motion to dismiss on the same day. Conference Mot. to Dismiss. Instead of intervening as formal parties, which would have required them to participate in the discovery process, the other nine departing schools filed an amicus brief stating that they “agree with and support UW’s arguments.”

WSU and OSU have endeavored to accommodate the departing schools’ intervention, including by serving them with Plaintiffs’ initial filings, inviting their participation, and communicating with their counsel about the case schedule. Thus far, all but UW have elected to remain on the sidelines. But the absent schools’ strategic decision to participate in this case through UW and amicus filings (a transparent ploy to attempt to avoid discovery) does not compel dismissal of this important action.

[BigPiney]

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[Applejack]

[Omaha 680]

Don't believe the noise and rumors, AJ. This isn't really happening.

Can SU make an appearance to bring proper closure to this thread? Something about the PAC holding all the cards and playing the long game would be nice.