Oregon State and Washington State are the only two remaining members of the Pac-12, which has lost 10 schools in 2024. According to a rep for the conference, the separation agreements allow the two leftover members to divvy up the money that schools like UCLA, Arizona and USC earned for the conference in recent tournaments prior to their departures. This year, according to Sportico's calculations, they'll both evenly split about $15.4 million.

Oregon State and Washington State themselves earned only six of the Pac-12's 43 active units, but they'll share in the spoils from a much larger haul, and that will continue for the next few years. While the Pac-12 is rebuilding around seven new members starting next season, their agreements also state the two legacy schools will continue to share units earned by the prior Pac-12 until they fully burn off in three more years.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/2026-march-madness-oregon-state-and-wazzu-cash-in-despite-not-playing/ar-AA1YZGqe

Just another reminder of how horrible the Judge Libey decision was.

So are they REALLY going to steal

all that money they did not earn?

If they're smart they will invest it into their programs and eventually leverage it into getting themselves into a real conference by showing how they take sports serious.

The reality... they probably will fail to do this and find themselves stuck in irrelevancy.

Well, if anyone is still wondering why the organization is still called the Pac12, instead of the Pac8, Pac9, the Pac, the Best of the Rest, etc. the NCAA unit payments on the books to the Pac12 is the answer.

The WSU Board granted $20 million earlier this month (March 2026) to WSU athletics, while the Oregon Legislature granted $10M to OSU athletics in March 2024. But, little has been revealed about how OSU and WSU are using the bag they got from the December 2023 Judge Libey decision. Would like to see more transparency from both institutions on that.

I couldn't care less about anything that has to do with the "Pac Dead-To-Me".

Yes, they won a few short term accounting battles and turned it into absolutely nothing.

Classic lotto winner tale.

2 hours ago, HDuck said:

Oregon State and Washington State are the only two remaining members of the Pac-12, which has lost 10 schools in 2024. According to a rep for the conference, the separation agreements allow the two leftover members to divvy up the money that schools like UCLA, Arizona and USC earned for the conference in recent tournaments prior to their departures. This year, according to Sportico's calculations, they'll both evenly split about $15.4 million.

Oregon State and Washington State themselves earned only six of the Pac-12's 43 active units, but they'll share in the spoils from a much larger haul, and that will continue for the next few years. While the Pac-12 is rebuilding around seven new members starting next season, their agreements also state the two legacy schools will continue to share units earned by the prior Pac-12 until they fully burn off in three more years.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/2026-march-madness-oregon-state-and-wazzu-cash-in-despite-not-playing/ar-AA1YZGqe

Just another reminder of how horrible the Judge Libey decision was.

The CS President's folded far too early. A state court judge's ruling should have been moved to federal court and appealed.

Perhaps this is the reason for the B1G coming up small in the tourney?

9 TCU 66 - 8 Ohio State 64

12 Highpoint 83 - 5 Wisconsin 82 - Lots of Ole' defense.

We do have a winner! 4. Nebraska 76 - 13 Troy 47.

Since 1985, there have been 58 times that the #12 seed has defeated the #5 seed. Here are a few examples.

2026 #12 High Point 83 #5 WISCONSIN 82

2024 #12 James Madison 72 #5 WISCONSIN 61

2019 #12 Oregon 72 #5 WISCONSIN 54

2013 #12 Ole Miss 57 #5 WISCONSIN 46

2009 #12 WISCONSIN 61 #5 Florida State 59 (OT)

2013 #12 Oregon 68 #5 Oklahoma State 55

⬆️. So if you Wisconsin you Never want to be the 5 seed...lol. As for Oregon, we shall let that "dog" lay until next season.

Quack.

The Pac 8 + Gonzo kiss the tournament Goodbye. 🤪

No. 3 Gonzaga 68 - No. 11 Texas 74

I had picked Texas. My pre-game concern was that the Zags just don't have the depth they have had in some recent years. No great picker accomplishment, just explaining my logic.

We've seen the same thing affecting the Ducks in the past. Especially if you get one of your main horses in foul trouble or injured early. If you don't have depth, you can be in real trouble in a one-and-out scenario.

"Pac 8 + Gonzo kiss the tournament Goodbye."

Well, I guess Utah State is still in it with a game vs Arizona on Sunday. But, will Coach Calhoun still be in it (Pac) by the end of next week?

4 hours ago, HDuck said:

"Pac 8 + Gonzo kiss the tournament Goodbye."

Well, I guess Utah State is still in it with a game vs Arizona on Sunday. But, will Coach Calhoun still be in it (Pac) by the end of next week?

Thanks for the correction, I can't believe I made a missed State? 😁

How could I have forgotten that the um, er, ah, Aggies have taken Gonzo's place as the bouncing ball leader of the Pac?

Unfortunately (🤣), the Tourney dinero earned by the Logan Utes will stay with a conference that the Pac Men are suing.

Perhaps justice is served?🤑

This thread has wandered far from the original topic.  My response here to that original topic is tardy because I have been away from my desk. I considered starting a separate topic to give what needs to be said more prominence than this statement will receive at the end of this already way off topic threat.  If Charles wants to move it to a separate topic, so be it.

 

Even so, the other side of Judge Gary Libey’s ruling deserves to be told.  The reason Judge Libey’s decision was not appealed by OBD and the other departing schools from the PAC-12 is really very simple.  The departing schools would have lost the appeal.  They did not leave multi-millions of dollars behind without good reason.

 

I say this as an attorney who practiced over 50 years, much of that practice being in the Oregon State appellate courts and the United States appellate courts.  The departing schools never had a case. 

 

There are two reasons supporting this opinion.  First, the one Judge Libey states in his opinion, that after USC and UCLA gave notice that they were leaving the PAC-12 the remaining ten teams voted to strip those two teams of their voting rights.  There is a principle in the law called estoppel.  A party cannot take contradictory positions on the same issue.  In short, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

 

OBD and the other nine schools voted that USC and UCLA lost their voting rights upon their notice of departure from the PAC-12.  When OBD gave notice of their own departure from the conference they no longer had a right to vote on conference matters.

 

Second, in 2023 the PAC-12 Bylaws stated that upon “notice of withdrawal” from the conference the departing school would “automatically cease to be a member of the Pac-12 Board of Directors” and lose all voting rights. Bylaws are made by the Board of Directors.  In short, you made your bed so now you will lie in it.

 

Quoted from “AI Mode”:

 

“In the legal battle over the Pac-12 Conference's future, Whitman County Superior Court Judge Gary Libey ruled in November 2023 that Oregon State (OSU) and Washington State (WSU) are the sole governing members of the Pac-12 board of directors. 

 

This decision was a critical victory for the two remaining schools, granting them control over the conference's governance and assets as the other 10 members departed. 

 

 

Key Details of the Ruling

• Board Control: Judge Libey determined that because the 10 other schools (Arizona, ASU, Cal, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, and Washington) provided notice of withdrawal, they forfeited their right to vote on the board.

• Financial Assets: The ruling gave OSU and WSU control over hundreds of millions in conference assets, which they intended to use to rebuild the league.

• Protection for Departing Schools: While losing voting power, the departing schools were still allowed to participate in board meetings to offer input and ensure they were "treated fairly" regarding their final year in the conference.

• Reasoning: Libey famously stated, "Conduct is what counts and words don't so much," referencing how the conference had previously stripped voting rights from USC and UCLA when they first announced their departure for the Big Ten.”

You can argue forever that because OSU and WSU did not contribute much to the incoming funds from past conference playoff results principles of equity require that the schools that “earned” those funds on the playing fields and courts deserve to share in them.  That argument will always fail when confronted with written Bylaws and your own contrary behavior.

Just for a moment, difficult as it may be, put yourself in the posture of the remaining two schools.  How much money would it take for you to be where they are, with two years of no scheduled conference games other than one another, and half empty stadiums and arenas?  Add in where they will be, with a new conference of teams with far lesser reputation than they were accustomed to having.

Most certainly, had OBD been left behind, you would expect to have the money that the law states the remaining schools are entitled to have, and as they currently expect to have.  In the opinion of this writer, they deserve it.

I understand the legality of your summary, and fully understand the major merits of the OSU-WSU argument:

"You ten schools...you broke up the conference." Then those two schools go about destroying another conference to fit their objectives. (Mountain West)

"You left only because of money--it is all you care about." And the two schools then sued to received over 300 million from the departing schools...of which very little was earned by OSU-WSU.

The real-life contradictions?

When USC/UCLA were "stripped of their voting rights" were they also informed they would no longer receive various revenue pieces from the conference? I don't recall that was part of what the other 10 did?

If not, I assume it was because the Pac decided the true effective date was their departure, not the date they gave notice of their future departure.

When Libey said it was the date they gave notice of departure, and if that is applied in other similar cases, it would simply incentivize any schools leaving a conference to never give notice until 12:01 am after the end of their current contract. That would not be a good faith effort and could harm those who stayed behind.

OSU and WSU benefited via advance notice that the departees gave. They benefited operationally and they took revenue they did not earn.

Thanks, Mike. Your analysis is solid, based on the forum to which the breakaway Pac schools subjected themselves.

The Pac-10 should have gone to bankruptcy court and filed Chapter 7 liquidation. Bankruptcy court is a court of equity. The fact that two member schools argued they had the right to manage the conference's affairs would not have overcome 10 schools filing for bankruptcy.

I have the same beef with the House settlement. Why enter into a settlement when you know the majority of the schools that settled will ignore the terms of the settlement, and every time you have tried to unilaterally tried to limit player compensation, you lost? File Chapter 11.

The House settlement enriched the plaintiff's attorneys and did nothing for the good of the game. It simply kept a neutered NCAA in authority.

The marketplace left Oregon State and Washington State behind, two schools that for decades benefited from the success of other conference members' media clout and tournament wins. Benefited while spending less money on athletics than the majority of the conference.

As Charles notes above, the post-breakup behavior of Oregon State and Washington State has been the height of hypocrisy. Much of the Pac-10 money went toward breaking up the Mountain West, to what purpose? CFB now has a Group of 6 instead of a Group of 5.

The Pac-12 reaped the whirlwind of pathetic, unfocused management, and the two-member schools whose leaders helped enable the mismanagement, the two with the least market power were left behind by Fox, ESPN, CBS and NBC.

Oregon was supposed to hang in for a speculative streaming deal, perhaps backed up by CW? That would have been financial negligence, per se.

The arguments made by Charles and HDuck are based on the concept that the team that played the playoff game or bowl game from which some portion of the proceeds were paid to the conference. earned those proceeds by themself. If only USC left the conference should they have continued to share in the bowl and playoff proceeds for many years thereafter?

If you look carefully at my post above you will see that I wrote "earned" in quotation marks. That is because I anticipated the subsequent arguments and meant that it is not the individual team that played the game that earned (deserves) the proceeds but the entire conference. The team that played in the playoff game or bowl game would not have been in that game if it were not a member of the conference at the time they were chosen. The bowl bids in particular belong to the conference, by written contract with the bowl.

That chosen team that played the game, in every case, belonged to the PAC-12 with a reputation gained by decades of performance by all of the teams in the conference and therefore garnered the bowl bid or playoff placement in large part because they belonged to the conference. Even today playoff bids consider the conference reputations and histories in being parceled out.

It only makes sense that if you leave the conference you leave the proceeds of the bowl games and playoff games that are paid over several years behind.

This argument will not end with this post or this thread. But the reality is that the legal argument is long since over and OSU and WSU are the indisputable winners of that contest.

It seems like the exiting members panicked for some reason and didn’t legally think through the exit. As an outsider laymen, I assumed 10 members leaving at once would translate into the conference just going away, apparently the exiting members fumbled on this aspect, which is actually inexcusable imo. Incompetence being obscured by falling into a pile of cash imo.

That being said Beavis and company have taken one misstep after another since the panic attack of the exiting 10, and have at best, greatly tarnished their reputation with one petty act after another.

Oram’s article today is spot on.

Edited 1 minute ago1 min by JabbaNoBargain