COVID Aftershock

There are many aftershocks of the pandemic. But here is one close to home and involving UCLA and the Regents. From the LA Times:

The San Diego Bowl Game Assn. is seeking a minimum payment of $3 million in compensatory damages from the Pac-12 Conference and the University of California Regents, stemming from the UCLA football team backing out of the 2021 Holiday Bowl in the hours before kickoff because of a rash of positive COVID-19 tests that depleted the depth of its defensive line. In a lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in San Diego County on Wednesday morning, the SDBGA alleges “a failure of defendants to accept responsibility and accountability for their conduct, which caused substantial damages to plaintiff.”

The SDBGA said in the filing it lost more than $3.6 million in ticket revenue it had to refund as a result of the cancellation and $1.4 million that had to be returned to the game’s title sponsor. The bowl’s total losses approached $8 million. “Despite the Pac-12’s good faith efforts to find an amicable and fair resolution, the Holiday Bowl filed a lawsuit this week seeking to leverage for its own financial gain the global COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the cancellation of the 2021 Holiday Bowl,” said a Pac-12 statement Wednesday. “The Holiday Bowl is now also refusing to pay the fees it owes the Pac-12 for our member institution’s participation in the 2022 Holiday Bowl, in clear breach of our agreement. The Pac-12 plans to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”

The bowl argued in the lawsuit that its obligation to the Pac-12 for the participation of the Oregon Ducks in the December 2022 game against North Carolina was $2.45 million. According to sources familiar with the ongoing discussions between the sides, the SDBGA informed the Pac-12 a week before the payment’s due date in April that it would apply the payment toward what it felt the Pac-12 owed from UCLA’s 2021 cancellation. “This offset was fair, just and equitable,” the filing states.

At issue in the case will be whether the Pac-12 correctly applied the “force majeure” provision of the contract the bowl and the conference signed in 2019 as a reason not to participate that will hold up under law...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2023-05-31/holiday-bowl-sues-pac-12-uc-regents-ucla.