The Washington court of appeals does not agree to hear the Pac-12 case.

The Washington court of appeals does not agree to hear the Pac-12 case.

The Washington state supreme court will not review a lower court’s decision that granted control of the Pac-12 board of directors to Oregon State and Washington State, the court ruled Friday.

With the ruling, a previous stay of the lower court’s decision has been lifted, granting immediate control of the board to OSU and WSU.

In a joint statement, Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy and Washington State president Kirk Schulz lauded the court’s decision.

“We are pleased with the Washington Supreme Court’s decision today,” they said. “We look forward to continuing our work of charting a path forward for the conference that is in the best interest of student-athletes and our wider university communities.”

For months, OSU and WSU have made it clear that they intend to rebuild the Pac-12 in the coming years; however, that process could not begin in earnest until this case was settled.

The ruling allows OSU and WSU full discretion to operate the conference as they see fit, including as it comes to revenue distributions.

Last week, OSU and WSU voted to block a midyear conference-wide revenue payment, a move they said was made to protect the conference against pending liabilities.

It is unclear what immediate steps OSU and WSU will take now that the departing 10 universities have seemingly exhausted their legal remedies.

Lawyers for OSU and WSU disagreed vehemently with Levin’s interpretation of the law and said they are confident such action is not legally possible.

In a Whitman County courthouse last month, an attorney working on behalf of Washington, Dan Levin, raised the possibility that the departing schools could attempt to dissolve the conference.

“It’s simply the fact that the members could decide to dissolve that they wanted,” Levin said. “Of course, in all this time during these proceedings and before, no member has called for such a vote.”

The Nov. 15 ruling was put on hold by the state Supreme Court a few days later and a ruling from September was kept in place that calls for unanimous vote by all 12 schools of any conference business.

Friday’s order lifts the stay and puts the preliminary injunction into effect. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the conference was not making its internal business decisions public.

Now Washington State and Oregon State can proceed as the sole decision-makers in the conference, though Superior Court Judge Gary Libey, while making his ruling in November, warned the schools about treating the departing schools unfairly and hoarding funds.

The 10 departing schools have said they are concerned that Oregon State and Washington State could deny them 2023-24 revenues from media rights contracts and postseason football and basketball participation that usually would be shared with the entire conference.

An in-season revenue distribution totaling $61 million dollars that otherwise would have been divvied up among 12 members in December was held up recently by the lack of a unanimous vote, according to a report by the San Jose Mercury News that was confirmed to the AP by a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

Ten Pac-12 schools have announced they are joining other power conferences next year, leaving Oregon State and Washington State facing a future with drastically reduced yearly revenues to fund their athletic departments.

Oregon State and Washington State have a plan to keep the Pac-12 alive and try to rebuild that includes operating as a two-team conference for at least one year, maybe two.

The schools announced earlier this month a football-scheduling partnership with the Mountain West. That partnership could eventually extend to other sports.

“A decision to distribute 15% of the more than $400 million in net revenues to the members now to support student athletes, as the Conference has always done in December, has nothing to do with the future of the Conference,” the 10 departing schools said in a joint statement to The Athletic.

“Instead, OSU and WSU’s refusal to agree to it shows that the two schools are abusing their position to injure our programs and athletes in violation of all prior precedents.”

The timing of the distribution is not explicitly written into the bylaws, giving Oregon State and Washington State discretion to hold the revenue for a later time. However, that money will still ultimately be owed to the 10 schools as part of normal Pac-12 distributions.

The two remaining schools recently announced plans to enter into a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West for the 2024 season and an option for 2025.

The pair will take advantage of an NCAA rule that allows a two-year buffer period for a conference to reach the required eight members.

The winner of the so-called “Pac-2” championship will not be eligible for a College Football Playoff auto-bid. After the two-year stretch, Oregon State and Washington State will either need to add additional members or merge with another conference.

The Mountain West remains a possibility; however, the long-term contracts and distributions given to the Pac-12 after 2024 will give the schools a nest egg to start their next partnership.