What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
BIG COUNTRY FOODS, INC., an Alaska corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the ANCHORAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA; Department of Agriculture; Richard E. Lyng, Secretary of Agriculture; William Demmert, Commissioner of Education for the State of Alaska, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 88-4018.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted Oct. 5, 1988.
Decided Feb. 28, 1989.
Sema E. Lederman, Hansen & Lederman, Anchorage, Alaska, for plaintiff-appellant.
Neil J. Evans, Asst. U.S. Atty., and Susan R. Sharrock, Thomas E. Wagner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Hellen, Partnow & Condon, Anchorage, Alaska, for defendants-appellees.
Before BROWNING, WALLACE and BRUNETTI, Circuit Judges.
OPINION
WALLACE, Circuit Judge:
Big Country Foods, Inc. (Big Country) appeals the district court’s denial of its motion for a preliminary injunction. Big Country, after unsuccessfully bidding for a contract to supply milk to the Anchorage School District for the 1988-89 school year, sought to enjoin the school district from entering into a contract with any supplier other than itself. Big Country also sought to enjoin both the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture and Alaska’s Commissioner of Education from authorizing the disbursement of federal funds to the Anchorage School District until its application for permanent injunction is heard. Big Country argued that Alaska statutory procedures used to award the contract violate the federal Constitution’s commerce clause and federal statutes governing the school district’s procurement of milk. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), and we affirm.
I
Big Country is a distributor of milk harvested in the State of Washington. It has been the successful bidder for the contract to supply milk to the Anchorage School District in five of the last eight years. The Anchorage School District receives, via the State of Alaska, federal funds which subsidize the purchase of milk for Anchorage school children. Federal funds are granted to the State of Alaska as a voluntary participant in the Federal School Breakfast Program, 42 U.S.C. § 1771, et seq., and the National School Lunch Program, 42 U.S.C. § 1751, et seq. Participants in these federal programs are required to procure milk “in a manner that provides maximum open and free competition.” Uniform Federal Assistance Regulations, 7 C.F.R. § 3015.182 (1988).
Sometime between May 11 and 26, 1988, Big Country submitted a bid of $360,000 for the contract to supply milk to the Anchorage School District for the 1988-89 school year. Two other suppliers, Northern Dairies and Matanuska Maid Dairy, submitted bids of $384,625 and $385,000, respectively. Pursuant to an Alaskan preference statute, Alaska Stat. § 36.15.050(a) (1988), which requires schools receiving state funds to purchase dairy products harvested in the State of Alaska if the price is no more than seven percent higher than products of like quality harvested outside the state, the contract was awarded to Ma-tanuska Maid Dairy. Big Country filed this motion for a preliminary injunction, claiming that the Alaskan preference statute violates the federal Constitution’s dormant commerce clause and the requirement under federal regulations of free and open competition for the procurement of milk.
II
The merits of Big Country’s claims raise a plethora of fascinating and complex issues, such as standing, mootness, ripeness, federalism, statutory interpretation, and the scope of the commerce clause. We need not, indeed cannot, resolve any of these issues due to the posture of this case. Our review of an order denying a preliminary injunction is very limited. Caribbean Marine Services Co. v. Baldrige, 844 F.2d 668, 673 (9th Cir.1988) (Caribbean Marine); Oakland Tribune, Inc. v. Chronical Publishing Co., 762 F.2d 1374, 1376 (9th Cir.1985) (Oakland Tribune); Sports Form, Inc. v. United Press International, Inc., 686 F.2d 750, 752-53 (9th Cir.1982) (Sports Form). The grant or denial of a preliminary injunction lies within the discretion of the district court. United States v. Odessa Union Warehouse Co-op, 833 F.2d 172, 174 (9th Cir.1987), (Odessa Union); Zepeda v. United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, 753 F.2d 719, 724 (9th Cir.1983) (Zepeda); Sports Form, 686 F.2d at 752. We will reverse “only if the district court relied on an erroneous legal premise or abused its discretion.” Sports Form, 686 F.2d at 752. We will not reverse merely because we would have arrived at a different result. Id.
The district court relies on an erroneous legal premise “if the court does not employ the appropriate legal standards which govern the issuance of a preliminary injunction.” Id., citing Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission v. National Football League, 634 F.2d 1197, 1200 (9th Cir.1980). “To determine whether there has been an abuse of discretion, the reviewing court ‘must consider whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment.... The [reviewing] court is not empowered to substitute its judgment for that of the [district court].’ ” Sports Form, 686 F.2d at 752, quoting Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 416, 91 S.Ct. 814, 823, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971) (citations omitted).
We emphasize again the limited scope of our review of a district court order granting or denying a preliminary injunction. We do so because we are concerned that parties appeal such orders for the purpose of ascertaining, prematurely, our views on the merits. As we repeatedly have cautioned, our disposition in these appeals offers little if any guidance on the proper resolution of the underlying merits. Caribbean Marine, 844 F.2d at 673; Zepeda, 753 F.2d at 724; Sports Form, 686 F.2d at 753. The purpose of a preliminary injunction is to preserve rights pending resolution of the merits of the case by the trial. It ordinarily does not obviate the need to proceed with preparation for trial and trial. An appeal of the district court’s decision on a motion for a preliminary injunction often will result in unnecessary delay to the parties and inefficient use of judicial resources. In this case, for example, Big Country probably could have secured a disposition on the merits of a motion for a permanent injunction in less time than it took to proceed with this appeal. It appears, however, that this case has lain dormant in the district court: Big Country has done nothing towards resolving its action for permanent relief. We question the appropriateness of Big Country’s attempt to use the appellate process to resolve a question that must first be resolved in the district court. Apparently Big Country did not heed our admonitions in Caribbean Marine, Zepeda, and Sports Form.
Ill
To obtain a preliminary injunction, the moving party must show either (1) a combination of probable success on the merits and the possibility of irreparable injury, or (2) that serious questions are raised and the balance of hardships tips sharply in its favor. Odessa Union, 833 F.2d at 174; Sports Form, 686 F.2d at 753; see also Oakland Tribune, 762 F.2d at 1376. These formulations are not different tests but represent two points on a sliding scale in which the degree of irreparable harm increases as the probability of success on the merits decreases. Odessa Union, 833 F.2d at 174; Arcamuzi v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 819 F.2d 935, 937 (9th Cir.1987) (2-1) (Arcamuzi); Oakland Tribune, 762 F.2d at 1376. Under either formulation, the moving party must demonstrate a significant threat of irreparable injury, irrespective of the magnitude of the injury. Arcamuzi, 819 F.2d at 937; Oakland Tribune, 762 F.2d at 1376; American Passage Media Corp. v. Cass Communications, Inc., 750 F.2d 1470, 1473 (9th Cir.1985).
Big Country argues in its opening brief that the irreparable injury it will suffer if injunctive relief is not granted is the “loss of a contract.” This loss is irreparable, Big Country asserts, because even if it is successful on the merits, Alaskan law provides no monetary damages for this kind of challenge.
Big Country does not articulate the form of injury that “loss of a contract” will cause it to incur, apart from its ambiguous assertion late in its brief that “[i]n the absence of injunctive relief, Big Country will lose a $360,000 contract, a major source of income for a small company.” Income is, of course, not the same as profits. Yet we assume, in light of this cryptic reference and Big Country’s argument with respect to the unavailability of monetary damages under Alaskan law, that Big Country is referring to pecuniary injury— lost profits. If so, we need not decide if Big Country has an adequate remedy at law for this injury. The record is barren of evidence of lost profits. Big Country merely filed an affidavit indicating that its bid was for $360,000. The gross amount of a contract in no way reflects the amount of profit Big Country may have realized had it been awarded the contract. As far as we know, Big Country may have lost money on the contract.
Big Country offers for the first time in its reply brief a new theory of damages. It suggests that its real injury is the inability to participate in a fair bidding procedure; and this injury, it suggests, is irreparable even without a showing of lost profits. For this unique proposition, Big Country cites an out-of-circuit district court decision, United Technologies Communications Co. v. Washington County Board, 624 F.Supp. 185, 188 (D.Minn.1985). United Technologies, in turn, cites no direct authority for this proposition, nor has United Technologies been subsequently cited by any court for this theory. In light of the general rule that an appellant cannot raise a new theory for the first time in its reply brief, we refuse to consider this novel notion of irreparable injury. Oakland Tribune, 762 F.2d at 1376 (refusing to recognize novel theory of irreparable injury not raised in opening brief); see also Northwest Acceptance Corp. v. Lynnwood Equipment, Inc., 841 F.2d 918, 924 (9th Cir.1988). Although the district court did not find that Big Country failed to show irreparable injury, we may affirm on any ground supported by the record. Islamic Republic of Iran v. Boeing Co., 771 F.2d 1279, 1288 (9th Cir.1985). We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Big Country’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
AFFIRMED.

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1