The Pac-12 is on death's door but Oregon State and Washington State aren't going to let it officially die without a fight.
On Friday, the Beavers and Cougars filed a complaint against the Pac-12 and commissioner George Kliavkoff in a bid to stop a board meeting scheduled for Wednesday, per ESPN.
There is a fear that the meeting of all 12 former members of the conference could involve a vote to dissolve the conference and distribute its remaining assets. Oregon State and Washington State want legal clarity about who can have a say in that vote.
Oregon State and Washington State are trying to stop the former Pac-12 members from officially ending the conference
Basically, the Beavers and Cougars want the court to state outright that the 10 Pac-12 schools that have withdrawn from the conference should no longer have a vote in matters related to the future of the conference. They want to be the sole board members with voting powers.
As with all things, it's about the money. The Pac-12 departees have an incentive to vote to dissolve the conference so they can evenly distribute the remaining assets on their way out. But the remaining two schools, who see themselves as the only valid members of the board, want to keep assets in their possession in hopes of resurrecting the conference in a different form.
In theory, OSU and WSU could hold the Pac-12 together and recruit the Mountain West to come under the umbrella of the Pac-12's stronger branding. What they need is time to get that done. A Wednesday meeting that results in the dissolution of the Pac-12 would make that impossible.
We'll have to see what the court says, but it does seem logical what the Beavers and Cougars are arguing here. If USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado willingly exited the conference and accepted membership to the Big Ten, ACC or Big 12, then their status on the board of the Pac-12 probably shouldn't continue.
