If I am reading the item below correctly, the U of Washington is essentially filing a lawsuit on behalf of the other departing members of the Pac-12 (which include UCLA and UC-Berkeley) to regain voting rights for the ten departers. That would give the departers control of the Pac-12 and whatever assets it has. From ESPN:
The University of Washington filed a motion to intervene in Whitman County (Wash.) Superior Court on Monday, seeking to join the lawsuit filed by Washington State and Oregon State against the Pac-12 and commissioner George Kliavkoff. If granted, the motion would pave the way for Washington to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which neither the school nor the nine other departing Pac-12 universities -- Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, Utah and Stanford -- currently has the authority to do while not a party to the lawsuit. UW acted on behalf of the 10 universities primarily for jurisdictional reasons, as the original complaint was filed in Washington.
On Sept. 9, WSU and OSU filed a complaint for breach of bylaws 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, at which point a hearing for a preliminary injunction was set for Nov. 14. The hearing would likely determine who would have voting rights on the Pac-12's board.
"UW has a significant stake in opposing WSU and OSU's claims and preventing the Court from granting the relief requested," the motion states. "True, UW is leaving the Conference after the 2023-24 academic year. But, in the meantime, UW remains a member of the Conference, and board participation and voting power affects the experience of UW's athletics teams and student-athletes for the 2023-24 academic year as well as UW's bargained-for contractual rights and financial interest."
WSU and OSU have contended that each of the 10 departing schools' announcements that they will move to new conferences next year qualifies as a notification to withdraw from the Pac-12, which would, per conference bylaws, removed their voting power. That precedent was set, they argued, when USC and UCLA no longer had voting power when they announced they were joining the Big Ten in the summer of 2022.
The 10 departing schools are challenging the grounds for that precedent...
Full story at https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38617609/washington-attempting-join-pac-12-lawsuit-order-dismiss-it.
Still unclear is the magnitude of the assets. But they are clearly sufficiently large to motivate the litigation.
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