OSU & WSU Fire Back at UW & Pac 12
Last filings before Tuesday's hearing
The court posted the last filings that will come before next Tuesday’s hearing. They were posted as TIFF files so the conversion to PDF resulted in large files.
The reply by OSU and WSU rebutted points made by UW in their filing made last week. They lead their arguments that only two board members remain with the statement “The ten departing schools are now hopelessly conflicted” and proceed to provide numerous examples of these conflicts from discovery.
OSU/WSU also demonstrate the the board of directors knew and tacitly approved USC and UCLA’s removal from the board. Furthermore the remaining board members had several discussions about using current year revenues to mitigate damages caused by the departure of those schools. These discussions were conducted using a unique email that left no doubt USC and UCLA were off the board: Pac10Board@Pac-12.org.
Note: I understand using current revenue to buy out the Pac 12 Network lease. That lease is likely a liability now that ten members are leaving. I also see justification for taking a small portion of the current year revenue from departing schools since they are not engaged in 100% of the Pac 12’s operations. For example, they are not involved in short-term and long term planning. I’d expect this cut to be in the 10% to 15% range.
The exhibits (discovery) for the filing are attached below.
One highlight is an email exchange between John Canzanno and the Pac 12 after Black Friday. Canzanno asks about the status of the “rainy day” fund, and gets a stunning reply that the Pac 12 considers their contingency fund to be all current year revenue ($420 million). This exchange also confirmed that at that time there were just four board members. See pages 94-102.
See page 105 for the other highlight: A letter from UW president Ana Marie Cauce explaining her concerns with the Apple deal. She was frustrated that she did not get straight answers on the marketing aspect of the deal.