Report: Holiday Bowl sues Pac-12, UCLA for $3 million stemming from 2021 matchup vs. NC State

The Holiday Bowl reportedly filed a lawsuit against the Pac-12 and UCLA for the Bruins pulling out hours before kickoff in the 2021 edition of the game, according to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy.

According to the report, the league refused to reimburse the bowl game once UCLA pulled out against NC State. The Bruins cited many COVID-19 issues and could not play the game.

Due to this, the game’s finances had a trickle down effect.

“The Holiday Bowl filed a suit in Superior Court in the county of San Diego Tuesday, claiming the non-profit San Diego Bowl Game Association lost more than $3 million from the cancellation of the 2021 game,” McMurphy wrote. “This wiped out the 43-year-old bowl association’s reserves … Because the Pac-12 didn’t compensate the Holiday Bowl for the 2021 cancellation, the (game), to offset those losses, did not pay the Pac-12 for providing a participating team (Oregon) in the 2022 bowl.”

Up to that point, the Holiday Bowl still wanted to be a good partner with the Pac-12 but the conference notified the bowl it would file a lawsuit if the bowl didn’t pay the money for the 2022 game by May 31.

In turn, the Holiday Bowl sued the Pac-12 for the 2021 game.

“The Holiday Bowl has been a great partner of ours,” Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff told Action Network in July. “We intend for them to continue to be a great partner of ours. We’re constantly talking with them about what happened (in 2021), figuring how to move forward together.”

The annual payout from the game to each conference is $3.2 million, so roughly $6.4 million total. The payments weren’t made in 2021 but the Holiday Bowl still lost more than $3 million, according to the report.

This game is a third-longest tie in game for the Pac-12 behind the Rose Bowl and Sun Bowl and provided more than $50 million to the conferenece in the bowl’s history.