The Pac-12 has reached a settlement in principle with two former employees who brought a wrongful termination lawsuit against the conference last year in the aftermath of the Comcast fiasco.
Former Pac-12 Networks president Mark Shuken and former CFO Brent Willman were dismissed in January 2023 for failing to properly report millions of dollars in overpayments by Comcast to the Pac-12 Networks over the course of a decade.
Shuken and Willman responded in April with a lawsuit alleging they did, in fact, properly report the issue — that they repeatedly told then-commissioner Larry Scott about the situation after it was discovered in December 2017. According to court documents, Scott told them “not to say or do anything.”
A few months after Shuken and Willman initiated the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court, the Pac-12 collapsed.
Any legal liabilities incurred are expected to be shared by all 12 schools, according to an agreement between the 10 outgoing members and the two remaining members, Washington State and Oregon State.
Shuken and Willman reached a settlement with the Pac-12 on May 22, according to court documents, but a binding agreement has not been formalized. A case management conference is scheduled for June 26.
The original lawsuit described damages “in amounts to be established at trial and believed to be in excess of $2 million.”
According to Pac-12 tax filings, Shuken earned $1.4 million in compensation in the 2022 calendar year, which ended weeks before his termination. The amount included $441,000 in “bonus and incentive compensation.”
Willman received $710,000 during that same year, with a bonus of $191,000.
The Pac-12 declined to comment on the settlement.
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