Departing Pac-12 schools oppose Oregon St., Washington St. motion - ESPN

In the ongoing legal battle for control of the Pac-12, the 10 departing universities expressed concern in a filing opposing a motion for preliminary injunction that if Oregon State and Washington State were to obtain complete control of the conference board, they could attempt to withhold revenue distribution from the 2023-24 school year from the departing members.

On Sept. 9, WSU and OSU filed a complaint for breach of bylaws in Whitman County Superior Court and sought an emergency temporary restraining order to protect what the schools saw as an «imminent and existential threat» to the future of the conference. The TRO request was granted Sept. 27, which prevented any board meetings to be called.

Washington, on behalf of the nine other departing schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC and Utah — joined the lawsuit as an intervening party Oct. 16.

A joint statement from the departing 10 schools, in part, said: «Granting OSU and WSU unilateral authority over hundreds of millions of dollars in 2023-2024 revenue needed this year to run our athletics programs would harm our universities, including our ability to provide critical resources and opportunities for our student-athletes.»

The original lawsuit came, in part, due to OSU's and WSU's fear that if given the right to vote in a board setting, the departing schools could effectively decide to shutter the conference and split the remaining assets, limiting OSU and WSU's options for how to move forward.

In the latest filing, the departing schools insinuated there were no plans to do that.

«The way to satisfy that duty [of loyalty to the Pac-12] is to recuse from decisions that, unlike those involving withholding 2023-2024 revenue