University of Washington Releases Unredacted Pac 12 Settlement Agreement
An unredacted reference to a Settlement Conference Report from March 2024 indicates there are even more details still to uncover.
I requested the Pac-12 Settlement Agreement from every party, hoping one university would not use the black markers to redact key provisions. The previously released version had three entire pages that were redacted. The Huskies came through. See the unredacted settlement agreement below released by the University of Washington today. I have marked the sections that were previously redacted with a yellow highlighter. You can check my work by downloading the redacted version (also below).
Here are some takeaways (nothing shocking):
House Settlement
Each member agreed to pay 1/12th of the eventual settlement.
The Pac-12 committed to reasonable efforts to minimize any “Power 5 Award.”
The Pac-12 has insurance to cover an undisclosed amount of the back pay.
A Settlement Conference Report from March 6, 2024, sets caps on liabilities for departing members but was not attached.
Analysis from a non-lawyer: The House back pay settlement as proposed by the NCAA (which came after the Pac-12 settlement agreement was signed) is addressed by deducting a portion of a conference’s men’s NCAA basketball units (see past composition section below). Since all those payments were to remain with the conference as part of the settlement agreement, I suspect there will be some debate about whether the departed members should reimburse the Pac-12 for a portion of any back pay deduction from those units. The departed members are capped on their back pay liability, but that amount is not in the agreement. The cap amount is included in a confidential settlement conference report. If departed schools owe the conference a payment, a 9/12 vote is required to confirm that payment. (There is an example given in the document on applying the cap., but I could not deduce a cap from that example) .
Other Items
There was a contribution agreed to by departing members for Broadcast Litigation (assumed to be related to the firing of Pac-12 Networks president Mark Shuken and former CFO Brent Willman and possibly the Comcast overpayment dispute).
Since a settlement was reached with Shuken and Willman before the last FY 24 distribution was made to departing Pac-12 members, this matter was likely resolved by withholding a portion of that payment.
Let me know in the comments if you see anything of note in the unredacted copy.
