As the Pac-12 looks for a replacement for outgoing Commissioner George Kliavkoff , Pac-12 Deputy Commissioner Teresa Gould is “considered a likely option -- not only as an interim commissioner through the spring but perhaps to manage a scaled-down version of the conference for the 2024-25 school year and beyond,” according to sources cited by Jon Wilner of the San Jose MERCURY NEWS. The conference has “begun the process of separating from” Kliavkoff, a move that has been “anticipated since the Pac-12 collapsed on Aug. 4.” Kliavkoff reports to the Pac-12 BOD, made up of the presidents of the two remaining schools -- Washington State’s Kirk Schulz and Oregon State’s Jayathi Murthy. Under the terms of a court order, Schulz and Murthy “are required to notify the 10 departing schools of any board action” ( San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 2/13 ).
BRING ME MY MONEY : USA TODAY’s Brent Schrotenboer noted the Pac-12 has “countersued the Holiday Bowl in San Diego” over a $3.4M payment the league says that it was owed for the game in December 2022. The Pac-12’s countersuit “comes about eight months after” the Holiday Bowl first sued the Pac-12 in May. In that lawsuit, the nonprofit bowl game “sought payback from the league after the Holiday Bowl game in 2021 was canceled” amid COVID-19 issues with players for UCLA. The Holiday Bowl claimed last year that it “suffered more than” $7.8M in losses from the canceled game in 2021 and later tried to “offset this by withholding its required payment to the Pac-12 for the game that took place in 2022” between North Carolina and Oregon, another Pac-12 member. Now the Pac-12 is “asking the court to help the league collect” ( USA TODAY, 2/13 ).
